Childhood Fears: There's Always a Monster Lurking...

My boys are getting older and I have not had to drag them with me to the public women's bathroom for many years.  I forget some of the trauma that created - for everyone involved really.  I had to try to corral them toward the restroom and make sure we could all cram into the one handicapped stall and then admonish them not to unlock the door while mommy was going number one (they needed to know this or they would repeatedly ask).  I'd settled in, bracing myself for the loud comments about mommy's lack of a penis while the other ladies in line snickered.  But those poor, unsuspecting bathroom-goers also had to endure the wanna-be-ninja, not-so-stealthy lurkers who suddenly appeared under the adjoining walls to quizzically stare up at them while they did their business.  Uh huh.  Who's laughing now?

I almost had a complete meltdown the first time I allowed my son to go into the men's restroom unattended.  Those two minutes stretched on forever and all I could think about were the pedophiles who hung out, waiting for helpless boys who were starting to get too old to visit the ladies' room.  I loved the idea of making my kids count the entire time.  (Nudging door open a tad) "Louder!  I can't hear you!"  "I can't tinkle when I have to say numbers!"

Yesterday as I was entering a restroom I saw another mom shepherding her son in front of her.  He stopped suddenly as the door opened and the mom instinctively knew to calm his bathroom-fears.  "Honey, there's not even an air dryer in here.  It's gonna be alright."  Oh my gosh, I totally blocked this from my memory.  You had to stake out each bathroom to find out if it was gonna give your kids nightmares because of the loud airplane takeoff that occurred each time someone decided not to just wipe their freshly-cleaned hands on their mom jeans.  I was thinking about that phase when I heard them discussing the next stressor.  Would the toilet suddenly decide to flush on its own?  Yep, it was an automatic flusher.  She kept reassuring him that it was alright while also praising him for getting the pee in (or near) the toilet.  As I stood up I heard the loud whooshing flush of my toilet over his little high-pitched squeals.  Oops.  Sorry buddy.  His own toilet monster soon came to life and he again freaked out, but mom was telling him the whole time, "It's fine honey.  See? We're all OK, right?  Nothing happened to us and you are fine."  You never know how long this bathroom avoidance stage will last, or what other events will trigger the same reaction.

When Logan was 2 1/2 years old we went into a party store in early October.  Big mistake.  The aisles were festooned with creepy Halloween clowns, bats, and hanging dismembered mummies.  He was completely traumatized.  I had to leave the store and go back later without kids to pick up the paper goods I needed to donate to some school event.  For the next year or so he wouldn't go into ANY store without first having a top-rated, freakout tantrum.  He was expecting a damn troop of clowns to jump out at him from under an apparel carousel, or some ghost to come sailing down the cereal aisle and suck out his soul.  It took a good five years for him to go willingly into a Halloween store.  And then who was the one screaming when a giant, fuzzy spider jumped up on a motorized lever?  Yeah... it was actually me.  But the cashiers were very reassuring that most of the customers had been startled.  I'm sure they witnessed that same kind of ineffective hopping, coupled with a bleating yelp hundreds of times each day (I keep telling myself).  Good thing I could quickly run off to the bathroom by myself!

Parenting Advice?

I've been playing this ongoing game with my older son.  Every morning when he takes a shower he leaves his boxer shorts on the floor of the bathroom.  This is also the "guest" bathroom, so any visitors who can't hold it have to be subjected to a pair of dirty shorts as they enter the room.  (Sorry about that ladies!)  Anyway, for a while he would leave them on the floor in the morning and I would pick them up each day and put them in his pillow case as a (hilarious) consequence.  The problem is, he didn't really notice - or care.  I figured he took them out each night, but it turns out that he simply moved the lumps around until he found a comfortable position.  I finally broke and removed five pairs of boxers from his pillow case and then yelled, "Why don't you ever just put these in your laundry basket?"  He admitted it was sheer laziness.  Couldn't bother to pick them up off the floor in the morning, and didn't have the energy to take them out of the pillow case at night.  UGH!

I don't know what else to do.  We've started deducting money from his allowance if he forgets, but I'm not convinced that'll do the job.  What do you do when you've exhausted your creative parenting persuasion techniques? You should ask for advice.  So that's what I did... when I was desperate... and nobody was around.  Here's how it went:

Me: How can I get my son to pick up his boxer shorts?
Siri: What is your child's name?
Me: (I don't really see how that's relevant, but whatever) Zack
Siri: OK, I've added this relationship.  I don't have an address for Zack.
Me: Siri, focus.  I just want him to pick up his shorts off the floor.
Siri: I didn't find any places.
Me: He leaves them in the bathroom.
Siri: I didn't find any public toilets.
Me: You gotta pee or something? Come on!  (I figured I'd try another approach) Why are boys so messy?
Siri: Hmm, let me think.  I will search the web.
[Lots of similar questions came up, but with "men" substituted for "boys", leading me to believe this will never change]
Me: I'm sure even you can clean up after yourself Siri.
Siri: Yes.  Now can we get back to work?
Me: Who can give me parenting advice?
Siri: I don't get it.  Do you want me to search the web?
Me: No.  Are you getting angry?
Siri: I can't answer that.  (Wow, so snippy)

I never thought I'd need to consult a computerized voice for parenting advice, but it turns out you get desperate.  And maybe it was the wine goading me on.  I wish Siri had more useful information for me, but maybe boys confound her as well.  I can't ask my friends because we all sit in companionable confusion when it comes to parenting boys, hoping that some important nugget we've instilled will one day "stick".  Really, we are just grooming them for a future spouse.  That's my motivation.  That one day, some girl will not hate me because her husband actually picks up his dirty clothes.  Or at least hides them in his pillowcase. Eh, you can't have everything.