please make my child stop talking

so i had to take my 3 year old son to the bathroom with me today in belks.  Well as if it wasn't bad enough that i had to figure out how he could use the toilet himself, i had to pee too.  Which he kept trying to open the door on me and all that good stuff.

Well there are other people in there, and i have to empty my bag, so i go to do that, and he says, really really loudly "is that poop?"  which of course it is, but i don't really want everyone to knwo that, so i am like, no, be quiet.  But of course you can smell that it is!  how embarassing!

and then he opens the door, again!

Taking small children to public bathrooms is horribly stressful

LOL!! My child announced to the entire non-smoking section (while trying to tell my friend with whom we were dining with) 'my mom went pee and poop in the potty!" Thanks, kid! Now, that she is older and I really don't want her asking me questions about tampons and such, I make her stand outside the stall where I can see her shoes. If her shoes move out of my line of sight she gets in trouble. It's hard being a parent and trying to balance privacy and child safety! --and many times its embarrassing!!

I always wanted my kids inside the stall with me too.

That's why I devised games to distract them. This all went on during our driving family trips too (picture a smaller version of the Brady Bunch episodes.....). My husband had it made, our girls and I took forever in the rest stop bathrooms but there was no way I was going to send them into their own stall. So we played all these games and still did when home at the mall or grocery store bathroom. To this day my kids tell me how corny I was but they did learn a lot along the way too. We talked about everything under the sun, I just made sure their eyes were elsewhere when I was taking care of myself. It's not hard to distract a kid. Sometimes all you have to say is the word - Look!

Little children do present challenges though.

I babysit my 8 yo niece on occasion. One evening recently I had oh about 6 or so bm's, one after another. After the third one, she wanted to know what the heck was going on. Why was I in the bathroom this much! Would she catch what I had? At least we were home.......I finally just told her the truth, I had surgery long ago and need a bathroom a lot now. I'm not contagious when this happens. Then of course this opened the door for her to tell me about all the people she knows who have had surgery! But at least the focus was off my situation and she was off telling me all sorts of stories. If my stomach wasn't heaving so much, it would have been so funny. As it was I know I had a smile on my face. That was a trying babysitting session. It's just a good thing she wasn't really young. Each time I was in the bathroom 3 or so minutes but each time she wanted to know - where are you going, again?

And so it goes.....hang in there summerstorm.

Mary

i was thinking duct tape next time!!! LOL
him openign the door was just as bad, oh lord how would that have looked???

marksy-the games and such are a good idea i might try that.

Just remember that all parents have to go through this.Almost all kids have big mouths and some how thay just know what will enbarass us the very most.We are always upfront about my medical problams.I have found that if you talk about it that the kids will think its no big deal.If thay ask somethink around other people I give them a short answer and tell them that we can talk more about it when we go home.I have to admit that its alot more enbarassing to me when thay ask questions about my period then about my ileostamy bag or my bad diearea that I have had since thay did my reversal.