Toilet Trouble

Sometime last week, I found Mason about to stick his head in the toilet. I reacted automatically, yelling, "MASON! Get your head out of the toilet! Gross! Don't do that." And then I washed his hands and got him out of there. Last night, we had our friends over for dinner. They have a little girl Mason's age. As dinner was winding down, they disappeared and soon we heard noise above our heads, where my bathroom is. I went to investigate, and guess what I found? Sweet little Anna, intently peering into the toilet bowl... correction - sticking her head in it!

"What are you guys doing in here?!" (I have to startle them so they jerk their heads back and don't complete their objective.) As she turned to look at me, I caught sight of my sweet, obedient, perfect little boy (yeah, right!), with his hand on the toilet handle and a mischievous grin on his face. His response? "Mom, watch this!" Then he proceeds to flush the toilet and start to dip his head in it! Of course I prevented him from doing so. "Gross!" I exclaimed, At that point, I noticed that he had already accomplished this at least once, as the fringe of hair at the top of his head was already wet. Seriously, how do they come up with this?

And then there's Thomas. Yesterday, he happened to use a toilet that had already suffered the effects of being crammed full of toilet paper by some child in our home, and had water about an inch from the top. He called for some assistance and that's when I noticed the water problem. I firmly instructed him not to flush the toilet while I ran upstairs to get the plunger from our bathroom. I was not four steps up the stairway when I heard the familiar flush of the toilet. I panicked, envisioning gross, used toilet water pouring all over the floor and the mess I'd have to clean. Michael heard my agonized "NOOOOO!!!!!" and came rushing out of our room to see what was the matter. He could see the water was going down the pipes, instead of overflowing, as I had expected, so he was much calmer than I was. He showed me how to lift the lid and push "the white thing" down if the toilet is overflowing to stop more water from going in.

So, today, when I was in the bathroom, Thomas comes in very calmly and says, "I need that thing again, Mom."

"What thing?"

"This." He calmly reaches around the toilet, gets the plunger, and exits the bathroom. I figure Michael must have sent him up for it to fix yet another clogged toilet. But it's a little quiet, so I go investigate. Just as I enter the hallway toward the stairs (and the kids' bathroom), Thomas comes out and says, "it's not working!" I go in his bathroom and find the toilet overflowing 3" wide streams of water on both sides. The floor is flooding yet again. Here's where I can use my new knowledge to make it stop. I lift the lid to push down "the white thing" but it's already down! Now what?! At least this water looked pretty clear. What could I do? I got the plunger and went to work. The toilet emptied, the floor got mopped up, and we're on to the next adventure. Such fun.