Can I be really honest for a minute?
Potty training is fabulous. Everyone loves it. No more diapers! Poop goes right into the toilet instead of being smeared all over everything! Diapers are expensive! {As if toilet paper isn’t?!}
But then you realize: public restrooms.
Yes. Because Little Darling always has to go when we’re out. Not right before we leave the house, when I say, “Are you SURE you sat on the potty? Are you SURE you don’t need to go again before we leave?”
Instead, it’s right when I have a full cart of groceries. Or when said groceries are halfway unloaded onto the conveyor belt at the cash register. Or when we get back to the car, in the middle of a packed and bustling parking lot.
But that’s not even my biggest peeve.
No. My most mortal of enemies: public restrooms.
Public restrooms, where if I set my 2-year-old down she is going to touch every surface she can reach, so fast it makes my head spin. There is no hope of control in this situation. Small children suddenly acquire a talent for moving at warp speed when you are in a public restroom. All that fecal matter that is coating every single surface of the restroom? On the hands. Which of course go into the mouth. And into the eyes. And ears. Nose. All over the face.
But again, not even my biggest pet peeve in this evil land of public restrooms.
Believe it or not, my beef isn’t with the toilet. Okay, it’s gross, but that isn’t my problem. Little bottoms sit on it, they invariably have to put a hand on the seat to steady themselves {dry heave}, but that’s part of the deal.
It’s the sink.
The sink is always too high for tiny hands to reach. And even if it weren’t, the faucet is approximately half an inch from the bowl of the sink. Even my tiny-handed little people can’t avoid rubbing their hands on that nasty sink to catch the water.
And that’s if the faucet isn’t automatic. My ultimate public restroom foe: the automatic faucet.
Because you know what? They are all scalding hot. I’m not sure why this is, but in every single public restroom where I have found an automatic faucet, the water that comes out could boil my kids’ mac and cheese noodles. No waiting time. Just first-degree burns on my kids’ tiny hands.
Why in the world is the water so stinking hot?!
It can’t be energy efficient. We don’t live on the Equator, where the water might come out of the ground at that temperature. Obviously the water is heated before it comes out of the faucet and tries to send my children and me to the emergency room. Unless the establishments with these abusive restrooms have an understanding with the local urgent care, I don’t understand why they would do this.
Solution!
Since I very much doubt the businesses with the public restrooms of my nightmares want to go out of their way to make my experience more pleasant, I have attached a portable bottle of hand sanitizer to my purse. This way, whenever I have kiddos with me and they A) can’t reach the sink or B) don’t want to have their skin burned off, we can just use some sanitizer. It doesn’t help any other moms, but at least it makes our outings possible.
