This is my sister, Amanda, and her college roommate, Amy. Amy has become a member of our family. Grace loves her, having dubbed her Mimi.

On Friday, the six of us went to our favorite Mexican restaurant to celebrate Amy’s birthday. Next to the al fresco of the chickens. It was lovely.

It really is our favorite Mexican restaurant. The owners are everybody’s grandparents, and their children and grandchildren help the run the restaurant. They are all happy to teach us a bit of Spanish each time we visit. It’s part cultural experience and part language lesson, served with an amazing meal. Plus, we usually meet other interesting diners, and that’s a bonus.

This Rancho Grande experience was slightly peculiar.

Part way through my cheese and onion enchiladas, my child announced – loudly, to the entire dining room – that she had to peepee.

She has a potty at home, and she sits on it from time to time, but always with her pants on. She does not pee or poop on the potty. We have also been reading some books about peeing and pooping on the potty, but we have not encouraged her to do it herself. I was perplexed.

“You have to peepee?” I asked.

“Yes. In the potty. Peepee in the potty.” She replied.

I was not keen to leave my meal for what I believed to be a false alarm, so I ignored the request.

“Peepee NOW!” She yelled.

Knowing she was wearing a diaper, as she had every day of her life, I again ignored the request.

Becoming frustrated, Grace laid down on the floor and began grabbing and massaging her diaper between her legs. “Peepee! Peepee! Peepee!”

The crotch grabbing sufficiently embarrassed me, so I agreed to take her to the restroom. In preparation for peeing on the potty, she took her diaper and her pants off. Right there. Next to our table, in the middle of the dining room at Rancho Grande.

Nice. I think she’d get along great with THAT toddler.

Mortified, I hiked up her drawers and took her to the restroom. Once we were there, I took her pants and her diaper back off, and she quickly climbed up onto the toilet using the handicapped rail. She clung to the seat like a little monkey hanging on a branch.

Left hand on the rail, right hand on the seat, she perched there. I squatted in front of her, talking to her (and trying to forget that I, too, had to pee).

“So, you have to peepee?”

“Yes. Peepee,” she said, and then she grunted. “Arrggghhhh.” I don’t think she really understands the difference between peeing and pooping.

Nothing happened. For ten minutes. I thought I was going to need a diaper.

And then, as quickly as she’d gotten up onto the potty, Grace pulled some toilet paper off of the roll, dabbed it on her hiney in the front and then in the back, and then dropped it into the toilet.

My strange and disgusting experience was about to become even more strange and disgusting, as Grace reached into the toilet, picked up the paper, and tried to hand it to me.

UGH!

I made her drop the paper back into the toilet, washed her hands, put her pants back on, and returned to the table to finish eating my supper.

She hasn’t asked to peepee on the potty since.

How strange is that?

Happily submitted to I am Blissfully Domestic