Of Tampons and Toilet Paper

Ryan Jr

Now first I need to say that I am not one of those Nazi toilet paper moms who like goes into hysterics every time one of my children goes near the toilet paper roll, but because of how expensive things are now a days I don’t make it easy for them to get at either.  Both of my children are immensely fascinated by the toilet paper, with Casey she would pile it on the floor outside the bathroom and jump in it.  When I brought home a new package she would take the package and push it around, and sit on it to pretend that it was a car.

Ryan on the other hand takes it and rips the squares off one by one, then when he has done that to his satisfaction he then rips all the squares apart into itty bitty pieces.  This effect is intensified when Barkley becomes his partner in crime…Barkley eats the toilet paper pieces.  I am pretty sure that this is only a shadow of what I have to look forward to in years to come.  Anyway, like I said before I don’t make it easy for him to get to the stuff, but when you have to spend some time on the throne he likes to make visits.  We keep our door to our “water closet” closed so that he can’t get in there, as not only is the toilet paper fascinating, so is the toilet brush and plunger and tampons. 

 Casey

He has not been feeling well lately, so when he made his visit to me the other day…I gave him what was left on the roll…not really the best idea.  He was completely mystified by it and didn’t stop until I had quite a mess outside my bathroom.  I was overjoyed by the fact that he wasn’t clinging to me as he had done for the previous 4 days, and I loved the look on his face when I gave it to him.  After so many days of sickness it touched this weary mom’s heart…right up until Ryane came home from work and asked why there was toilet paper pieces all over the bedroom.  I smiled and said I gave the little man what was left on the roll, the look on my husband’s face was priceless…something like concern mixed with confusion.  I just know he was thinking “holy crap, my poor wife has lost her mind because of lack of sleep”.  I looked at him and said…”don’t you know that toilet paper is magical?!”…because it is!  Ever since then he hasn’t been so clingy, and his fever hasn’t been so high.

I have become a firm believer lately that toilet paper IS magical.  Hell, it sure brings me joy when I buy the huge package at Target and bring it home…something about having that much toilet paper in the house makes me feel wealthy.  Toilet paper, or even paper towels for that matter, can preoccupy my children for hours…not worth what you pay for it, but occasionally worth the clean up to see them wrap that stuff all over the house and run with smiles on their little faces as they chase each other with the dog bounding along behind.

 Casey

The other thing that is truly fascinating to children is tampons…what are these individually packaged tubular things that mom keeps next to the toilet?  They are hand size and make a most wonderful crinkling sound, and the best thing is that there are oodles of them in that box!  This is their mind set, I just know it, as he runs away with the box chucking them all over the upstairs.  I was foolish recently and didn’t pick them up before I left with the kids, and Barkley got to them…this is disastrous as he eats them.  I came home to find tampon bits scattered all over…thankfully he only managed to chew up 3 of them.  The box took the majority of his attention, so I have 2 handfuls of tampons and no box…all in all not a very expensive mistake. 

Casey also had this same fascination when she was around Ryan’s age…but there was no dog to be her cohort in crime.  She just loved to take them out of the box and examine each one, toss it aside, while sitting in the pile of them. 

 Ryan Jr

It is days like this that I wonder why we as parents spend so much money on toys when the children always end up playing with boxes, toilet paper, tampons, and cups.  It must be for the momentary distraction it takes for us to push them out the bathroom door after we rip the toilet paper out of their hands…this way the screaming doesn’t last as long.  So here’s to the silence, however fleeting, that the insanity of giving our children toilet paper brings in our lives!  Silence is golden and toilet paper is magical!

 Barkley