A friend once admitted that since becoming a parent, she has found herself saying extraordinary things, like “Please keep your bottom to yourself” and “No, I don’t want to smell your fart.”
I thought fondly of this friend the other day when I found myself
pretending to be my daughter’s urine.
Recently, Little Sister (almost 3) suddenly got possessive about her
pee. After going at bath time, she would then hold it all night, through the
next day’s morning routine, and sometimes even until after we’d arrived at
daycare--some 14 hours after she’d last relieved herself. She must have needed
to go (surely??) but she valiantly resisted doing the deed. She would hold out
to the very limits of her strong will, not to mention her bladder of iron, notwithstanding
gentle suggestions, heartfelt pleas, bribery, or threats.
On our recent overseas holiday, I started to get more anxious than usual
about this little quirk of hers. I needed to know that the crucial moment would
not come in the middle of a two-hour bus ride, or in a crowded check-in queue.
I needed, somehow, to achieve pee on demand.
It was at that point that I remembered the words of Big Sister’s
amazing daycare teacher: “They love it when you animate
ordinary objects. If they don’t want to put on their shoes, give their shoes a sweet
little voice: ‘Hey! Please put us on! We want to be on your feet! Pleeeeease!’
”
And so it was that, in absolute desperation, last week I took a shot at being the soft,
high-pitched, lovable Voice of Wee Wee.
“Hel-lo? Can
anyone hear me? Little Sister, are you there? It’s your wee wee! Hey, I really want to come out for a lovely swim in the toilet. Please
would you let me out? Oh, pretty please?”
I felt like a prize idiot. No one except my daughter could hear me, but
that didn’t change the fact that I was a 36-year-old woman pretending to be
piss trapped in a toddler’s bladder. I pondered my 18+ years of formal
education and wondered where it had all gone wrong.
That was, until I heard an unfamiliar hissing noise, and realised in
amazement that my cringe-making efforts had
actually bloody-well worked! Never
before had the sound of another person peeing been such a balm to my frayed
nerves.
I was caught off-guard, though, at Little Sister’s effusive reaction. In
a giggly, high-pitched voice (how else would a front bottom speak, after all?)
she replied grandly: “There you go, Wee Wee! You’re welcome!” Front Bottom went on to express the sincere wish that Wee Wee have fun swimming in
the toilet, and to point out a few exciting possibilities, e.g., availability of
used toilet paper for floating games, not to mention more friends potentially dropping
by after Big Sister’s turn on the toilet.
I couldn’t have predicted the overwhelming popularity of The Voice of
Wee Wee. As you can imagine, he/she/it did not manage to get away with a
one-time performance. On the contrary, Little Sister has generously stepped up
her efforts in the toilet department in order to give Wee Wee more air time.
And on top of that, it turns out that Wee Wee has a deep-voiced friend
called Poo Poo.
