Confessions of a Mother

He stood next to the dining table, his shorts on backwards, a black pen mark up his right leg, and a sheepish grin across his face. I knew something had happened, probably in his favorite place in the house, the bathroom.

Nathan licked his lips and tapped his bare foot on the tile floor, his new buzz cut shining in the suns reflection through the dining room window.

“What did you do Nathan?”

He was four, he felt no offense for an outright accusation that he had been involved in something most likely mischievous. His blue eyes darted around the room. Was he going to make something up or was he waiting for something to distract me? I wasn’t sure.

“In the bafroom.” He said with a smile, cocking his head and clicking his tongue.

Was I going to need to call hazmat? Was it going to be something stinky? Was it going to be a watery result of his obsession with bubbles in the sink, and recently in the toilet? Oh the horrible possibilities of a four year old with a spare three minutes in a bathroom.

I felt at one with the force as the seven and a half steps I took to the bathroom were accompanied in my head by the Darth Vader ballot. It was a long, lonely road. The father of this child was safe at work, and this child’s siblings in a distant galaxy we call school.

There was no way out, the judge had passed his sentence and I alone was to face the music. I rounded the corner, instinctively holding my breath, looking with my eyes half shut. It was a miracle, my bathroom floor had been transformed into a bathtub, how could this be? What modern invention could accomplish such feats?

“Nathan, what did you do?”

“I put da bouncy ball in and flushed da toyet.”

Oh, what a genius, it was shear brilliance. Any ordinary bouncy ball would have flushed right down, and what would be the glory in that? No, Nathan, my extraordinary son put in the “BIG” bouncy ball that is made of very hard rubber and has little cutsie flashie lights that go on when you bounce it.

He must have learned this genius from his older sister, who at a younger age, (she always was a show off), learned that if you put a ceramic napkin ring in the toilet, it would allow some things to pass, but not others. Could a mother be anymore proud? I’m thinking Harvard, scholarship.

So once again, I am left to face my demons and allow gross amounts of filth and contamination to violate my hands as I soak up lovely potty water. But you know what, when my children have their valedictorian speeches at the colleges of their choices, I know in my heart that they will scan the crowd, find my face and say, “Thanks mom, couldn’t have done it without you.”

On that day I’ll wipe the tears from my face and think to myself, you’re dang right, now get the rest of your junk out of my house, I’m turning your room into my personal gallery. Such is the joy of motherhood.