More Candy Wrapper Wisdom

This morning Lucy came to me and said, "Hey mom, when I got my toothbrush out earlier I knocked Ben's into the toilet, but it's OK, I got it out." Maintaining my composure, I raised my eyebrows and looked at her suspiciously, "Hmmm... after you got it out, where'd you put it?" She took my hand and led me to the bathroom where the door to the medicine cabinet was standing open. “Right there,” she said, pointing to a shelf where my toothbrush lay…with Ben’s right on top of it. I smiled weakly, told her thanks for fishing it out of the toilet and that if it happened again, she should just throw the toothbrush away (all the while desperately trying to remember the order in which everyone brushed their teeth this morning).

In the small bathroom that the kids and I share, the medicine cabinet spans the entire wall above the sink and the toilet. Since moving to this house I’ve asked the kids easily a hundred times to keep the toilet lid closed to avoid the exact scenario that happened this morning, to no avail (obviously). When I sat down at the end of the night with a sizeable glass of wine, I unwrapped a Dove Chocolate Promise. I figured a day that began with a toothbrush in the toilet warranted a little indulgence. The advice dispensed on tonight’s candy wrapper couldn’t have been more fitting: “Set your goals high but not your expectations.” Who’d have thought at this point in my life, though, my loftiest goal would be a consistently closed toilet lid?

My roommate contends you must tell a child to do something one thousand times before they will do it without being told and she swears she has empirical data to support this contention. (I’m suspicious of her research methods, though – when questioned, she’s dodgy and vague.) One thousand times seems high to me, but what if she’s right? I estimate I’ve told those kids three times a day since moving in to close the toilet lid. At this rate, that toilet lid won’t be closed on a regular basis until sometime around August of 2011.

Just to be on the safe side, I think I’ll heed the advice of my Dove Chocolate Promise wrapper and keep my expectations low.

Tomorrow I plan to stock up on toothbrushes.