In a desperate situation, when she was fresh out of the potty training stage, I taught my oldest to go to the bathroom in the great outdoors. She resisted at first, telling me, “No Mama! Use Potty!” She had class. I encouraged her right then and there to lose that classiness. Sadly, I now see that I have created a monster. She might have gone too far the other way.
We were hiking in the middle of the Hoh Rain Forest last weekend when I suddenly regretted consuming so much water beforehand. This mom of three should have known better. At some point during one of my three pregnancies, I went from cursing toddler bladders to basically having one. It was like the bladder circle of life or something.
Anyway, I tell my oldest that we need to hurry so I can use the restroom. “Just squat, Mom,” she said. “Um, no. There are people everywhere.” I replied. “There’s no one around now. Just go behind that stump,” she pointed.
For the purpose of this column, I’m going to share more information than you ever wanted to know about me; I’m not anti-squatting. I’m a Forksonite after all. However, I am very anti-squatting in a forest where there are more tourists than trees.
“I’m not going to go out here.” I told her. “OK, but I don’t know what the big deal is.” She replied with a huge helping of attitude. My daughter is wise beyond her years. Seven years ahead to be exact. I’m dealing with a teenager in the first grade. That’s why she says things like, “I don’t know what the big deal is.” She’s going to be a lot of fun when she is a real teenager.
I’ll be honest though, at one point I began contemplating taking my daughter up on her suggestion. I got especially desperate when my dad stopped to talk to some tourists about how great the trees would be for logging.
Side note: “Dear Dad, wrong audience. These people are not on your side of that debate.”
Throughout the remaining duration of the “3/4 mile” trail, my daughter encouraged me to “just squat” approximately 7,348 more times. I use quotations because that trail is NOT that short. At least it doesn’t seem that short when your bladder is conspiring with your daughter to torture you.
Eventually I made it to a restroom, not that I would admit to all of you if I didn’t, but I did. This of course was not without my daughter saying, “You could have just went out there like normal people do.” Normal people? No. It is not acceptable, even for Forksonites, to do that in front of people. I apparently did not explain that well enough. It is my fault that she is too Forksonite-ish.
For questions, comments or for a complete list of places where it is acceptable to squat, e-mail me at christyrasmussen@yahoo.com. Do not ask my daughter. She thinks it is acceptable everywhere.
