Parents, Obey Your Children!

So..we're all having a nice time around the dinner table. My darling One has set it extra fancy tonight with a cloth and placemats; Two added a candlestick. Maybe there is something to be said for the benefit of aesthetics. Three was off on her customary, middle-of-the-meal potty break when I noticed she had been gone (and quiet) for an unusually long amount of time. I called out to her, "Do you need help?"

"No!"

"Are you in there playing with the water? Because if you are..."

*flush*

Then Three meekly comes back to the table to confess that, "Some-ding wone go down."

"Did you build a nest?" (That's what we call it when you lay toilet paper over the seat surfaces, to protect against germs in public restrooms.)

"No."

"What did you put in there?"

"Jus...jus...toilet paper."

"O.k....from now on, you count four squares. Only four -- that's all you need, o.k?"

"O.k."

(Now, right here, I muse with Husband how I have become my own father! He made a rule like that for my sister and me once because we were wasteful. I always thought it was among his FUNNIEST and WORST moments of reason, but here I was doing it too!)

Ignored, Three shuffles back to the bathroom, presumably to wash her hands. The rest of us continue talking about what One and I learned in today's history reading. And then...

Three comes back. Quietly. Hesitantly. Matter-of-factly she informs us, "Um. Some-ding...in da badroom...is not doing well."

Husband and I stare at each other for just a moment before we both jump up from the table to find out what in the bathroom is not "doing well."

Of course the toilet is overflowing, and has been for enough time to require a mop.

*deep breath*

I'll get it.