Not me Monday: Vacation retrospective

It wasn't our family that you saw the other week, taking over the single stall restroom in that diner so we could get the entire family "pottied" before we hit the road again. When our family is road tripping, we always make sure to do our pit stops at places with plenty of stalls. And when my grade school aged daughters need to use a public washroom, I can just lean against the wall and cross my arms while they calmly and quickly take care of their business. It wasn't me you heard threatening, cajoling and bribing my children ("Do you want to have to go on the side of the road?"). It wasn't my kids you heard freaking out over the automatic toilets and begging me to cover the electric eyes. My children are rational and mature for their age and don't get all wrought up over evil toilets that may or may not flush loudly and suddenly under them while I am trying to keep my temper and get them to "just relax and hurry up and pee, okay?"

And my kids most certainly do not still feel the need to strip off everything below the waist in order to use the washroom. They don't take off shoes and socks and shorts and underwear and leave it in a pile on the floor of a public washroom. That would be gross. Those floors aren't sanitary! And if one of my daughters did such a thing, I would never decide that a good solution would be to precariously pile her clothes on the back of the toilet where she could knock her underwear into the water when she was done. I would never take a situation that wasn't going to get any worse on its own and make it potentially disastrous like that. Not me!

It wasn't my daughter that you heard screaming at the top of her lungs from that single washroom in the diner. My children use appropriate, inside voices in public places. Even when their underwear is taking a swim in the toilet bowl, and Mom, for some inexplicable reason, wandered back to the table.

When our family goes on vacation, I plan for contingencies, so my daughter wouldn't find herself without a spare pair of clean underwear in the suitcases in the back of the truck. I wouldn't have to convince my kid to borrow a pair of her older sister's. Nope, not me. And I wouldn't go out of my way to find a different store with an available public washroom in which she could change. Nor would I, a parent who would never bribe her children,* nearly breathe a sigh of relief when my daughter spotted that perfect toy coming out of the washroom in the second hand store. The one she's been wanting and asking for. Nope--not me breathing a prayer of thankfulness that God turned imminent disaster into a perfect coup, and that we could drive away with a happy kindergartner and a steal for a piece of doll furniture. Oh--wait. Maybe that last one was me.

*(no, those are not my children who nearly accost the bakery ladies at the grocery store for free cookies every time we go shopping)

Not Me Monday is a blog carnival created and hosted by MckMama at My Charming Kids.