On Monday, during rest time, Clara kept getting up to use the potty. It was all a ruse, I knew. She was tired of "reading" books to her babies in her bedroom; tired of lolling about on the floor and singing; tired of banging her feet against her bedroom door. She hasn't actually napped during rest time for about eight months. Nonetheless I need time for myself (or time for myself and Louis), so I still make her go to her room for a few hours after lunch each day.
I saw her tiptoeing across the upstairs landing to go to the potty for the third or fourth time, wearing a t-shirt and nothing else. There's only so much a person can pee and poop, I thought. After a moment, I heaved myself out of the chair where I was breastfeeding Louis. Holding him in the crook of my arm, I went upstairs to the bathroom. She was standing in front of her potty, peering down into it dubiously.
"Mom, my poop has a whisk," she said, pointing.
"A whisk?"
"Yep, a whisk, like a cat has."
"A whisker?"
"Yep. My poop has a whisker."
I trust I don't need to go into detail here. I explained to Clara that our bodies can sometimes excrete something that resembles a long, straight fiber, and no, I don't know why that is. Then I disposed of her poop and cleaned her potty. I helped her wash her hands and sent her back to her room.
Twenty minutes later, she was back in the bathroom.
When I went up to see what she was up to, again with Louis in the crook of my arm, a long sheaf of toilet paper rolled out the bathroom door to greet me like a carpet for tiny visiting dignitaries. Clara had the sink water running, and was standing on her little stool to reach the faucet. She had filled up a plastic sandwich container we got for our wedding ages ago--she uses it as a bath toy now--with water and was dipping fistfuls of toilet paper into it and using the sodden paper to "wash" the counter. She had stuffed a bunch of toilet paper down the unstoppered drain so the water would accumulate in the basin. The soap dish was sunk to the bottom of the basin, and the soap had disintegrated into fragrant, white slime.
"Okay," I said. "That's enough." I grabbed a hand towel with my free hand and started mopping.
"Nooo!" she squealed. "Mom! I'm-I'm-I'm washing! And you can't take that!" She frantically grabbed at the sandwich container as I dumped the water out of it. Louis watched her, smiling faintly and sighing. Here was a person, only a little less tiny than he, that could walk and talk and command the attention of an entire room with the flip of her hair (whereas he can only command the attention of a room with the ferocity of his baby gas). At two and a half months, Louis can't always focus his eyes on Clara when she's, for example, streaking past him wearing a pink tutu and long, hot pink evening gloves, or twirling on the couch for "couch ballet." When she's right next to him,though,putting stacks of beaded bracelets on his chubby arms and legs or adorning his head with flowery hairpieces, he gives her the choicest of smiles. He does occasionally get irritated with her but, interestingly, not when she's calling him "Doodles" or "Dee-dee" at close range in a high-pitched voice, or forcing a binkie into his mouth. And not, either, when she pushes his cheeks together with her hands and says, "Say 'chubby cheeks,' Louis." No, the only time he gets irritated with her is when he wants his milk. And then it's not just her, but the entire universe, that's wrong.
"Back to your room," I ordered Clara. "Go!"
But five minutes later, just when I had settled back into my chair, my arm sporting a red mark where Louis had fervently sucked while I mopped up water, I heard the toilet seat slam.
I found Clara standing on it, fishing for her toothbrush on the shelf above. She got it just as I grabbed her with my free arm. In her other fist she clutched her Thomas Train training toothpaste. She wriggled free from me and thundered down the hall to her room.
"What are you doing?" I shouted, striding after her.
"I have to brush my teeth!" she shouted back, trying to shut her door on me. A stuffed dog and a purple sea turtle prevented her door from slamming it. I had to wade through the ball of blankets and the sea of books on her bedroom floor to get to her. I wrested the toothbrush and toothpaste from her as Louis watched, vaguely interested, from my arm, his head gently waggling back and forth as Clara and I grappled.
"Noooooo!" Clara screamed. "I need that! I need that! I-I have bad breath!"
