Toilet Paper

How is it that an otherwise rational, 33 year old woman can be brought to the breaking point by a roll of toilet paper? Granted, this was about the 15th time I'd had to have the conversation - calmly - about how we do not spin and spin the roll until we have a toilet paper mountain next to the toilet. Maybe that was it, the calm part. I faked being calm long enough that all of my little bits of frustration added up into one Super Nanny time out spot for Mommy.

That is all I can come up with to explain why I could hear myself saying things like, "If you keep unrolling all of the toilet paper, we are not going to be able to buy any more dolls, EVER, because we will have no more money. We will have spent it all on new toilet paper!", yet could do nothing to stop myself.

This is the hard thing about parenting my monkey. Any other kiddo that has a firm foundation can be placed into time out and then can move on. Not my lady. She called me into the bathroom and flashed me the biggest grin - she thought it was just the funniest thing that she had built a tower of paper product. To parent my child, I was supposed to smile, laugh, and then remind her to please not do that anymore. To my credit, that's what I did the first 14 times.

Perhaps it was finally my fear that kicked in. If she kept doing that to our toilet paper, there were only two possible outcomes. 1) In the dead of the night, I would reach for a piece of toilet paper and would be left hanging, or 2) Our crazy toilet paper eating dog would eat the whole pile and then I would be the one caught without a bag as he hunched down for a toilet paper nunchuck drop right in someone's front yard.

On tomorrow's to-do list: Go by Costco. Pick up industrial sized package of toilet paper. Hide on top shelf.