Toilet taunt

Betty has recently been allowed to explore new territory, namely, the bathroom. I would never allow her into the bathroom before (apart from when she was safely contained by the bath) as I didn't want her sniffing around the loo brush, nappy bin, loo, and putting them all in her eager and inquisitive little mouth, or playing with the contents like she inevitably would.

Due to a bad bout of PMT, which quite often turns me into a cleanliness-crazed mentalist (amongst other, less savoury things), I blitzed the upstairs bathroom, through and through, with every cleaning product I could lay my hands on in Sainsbury’s. I removed the loo brush and holder, bought a Betty-proof nappy bin, and scrubbed the loo until it gleamed and smelt of roses. I then instructed Tom to only ever use the downstairs loo, as this one was now out-of-bounds (to him anyway).

Usually, whilst I am getting Betty’s bath ready, Tom plays with her in her bedroom, and gets her undressed and ready for the bath. However, Tom was in London for meetings the other night, and so, whilst the bath was running, I left the bathroom door open to see what Betty would do. She has been champing at the bit for months, trying to get into the bathroom, and spotted her chance immediately. She was off like a whippet to investigate this whole new, pretty horrible, world of lime-coloured, albeit clean, porcelain fixtures.

My goodness me, the wait was certainly worth it. Betty marvelled at her reflection in the full-length mirror, excitedly waving, pointing and chatting at herself. She then started to try to pull her reflection’s hair, which is when I knew it was time to show her other points of interest, before she ended up in a punch-up with herself. She then stood at the side of the bath, and watched in awe as the bath filled up, and delighted in putting her hands under the running tap. It was magical to watch.

Aside from appearing to Betty to be a great (perhaps even greater than her dad for once) mum for letting her into the bathroom, I had an ulterior motive – to start, probably very naively and prematurely, getting her acquainted with Mr Shanks. I have this notion (again, probably naively) that Betty will be an absolute dream to potty train. I base this on the fact that when she does a poo in her nappy, she often crawls off under the table in the sitting room to do it – a bit like a cat – very neat and tidy.

She began her acquaintance with the loo by licking the lid, all the way around, and even though I was 100% sure that it was probably now cleaner than the tray of her highchair, I couldn’t handle it, and my greater-than-daddy-ness rapidly disappeared when I promptly removed her from the bathroom, and shut the door tightly.