Tonight after the whole family got home from being out and about, I stood in my neighbor's yard with Emmeliese, chatting. Annalivia and Daniel tromped up and down his sidewalks, which are apparently more march-inspiring than ours, and then Annalivia disappeared. In a few moments, Dennis disappeared, too, and a few moments after that, I heard Annalivia howling in frustration.
After my conversation with the neighbor, I came inside to find a sobbing Annalivia wearing only a t-shirt. I could tell by her face that she was mad. I asked her what was going on. "Daddy won't let me go pee-pee in the yard!" she yelled.
Turns out Dennis had found her with her dress hiked up, crouching behind some bushes in the side yard -- i.e. the "side-that-faces-Main-Street" yard. And while she had done a fine job concealing herself from the view of our house behind those little bushes, she hadn't considered whether any one else could see her, i.e. someone driving by on Main Street at dinner time when the road is at it's busiest.
It honestly never had occurred to me that I needed to have a conversation about when it is and is not appropriate to go pee outside. It has occurred to me now. The conversation has been had -- with this kid, anyway. I'll move it up a few years with Daniel.
2 comments:
Oh goodness. Just wait until Daniel gets to that age! Noah once peed through the bars on a McDonald's playground right into the manicured bushes and mulch. And to make matters worse, he was with another family at the time. I wasn't even there. And then there was the time one of them (I can't remember which one) peed in the MIDDLE of a park at a multi-church pic-nic. I was chatting with some ladies and one of them pointed and said "is that your son?" and there he was, doing his little toddler business in the grass.
Hilarious! And do I know the neighbor? I bet he thought it was hilarious too!
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