How About a Little Toilet Wine?

It's official; toilet training is the job from hell. I think it's quite possibly the worst part of parenthood, well it is for me anyway. On day five of "Potty Training Boot Camp" I can't imagine how we're going to get from where we are now to being able to have freedom again. We've been trapped in our house, chained to the smallest room by the invisible shackles of stubbornness, leaving only for a quick trip to get Burger King fries and Fanta orange soda on day four, when Shayden figured out if he didn't eat or drink he wouldn't have to use the bathroom. Thankfully, Fanta and fries won that battle.

This past week, there have been a few frightening moments where I've found myself longing for a glass of wine before 1:00pm, something to just lighten my spirit and give me the boost I need to muster up that extra bit of patience and empathy. Was it potty training that turned many housewives of the past into raging alcoholics, making them drink all day long? Sitting in the bathroom for hours, one's mind tends to wander. While staring at that shiny porcelain bowl, I dreamily thought about "Toilet Wine," and like Homer salivating over a doughnut, the mere suggestion of some powerful hooch made by prison convicts made me realize at that moment, I'd probably even down a glass of Boones Farm.

So,as the aromas of my son's urine wafted up from the floor below filling my nasal cavities with the intense smell of ammonia, I tried to imagine it was cat pee aromas from a lovely French Sancerre or Sauvignon Blanc from the New Zealand's Marlborough region instead--ahhhhh Cat Pee on a Gooseberry Bush, even a wine with a silly name like that could be a savior.

I keep thinking back on one of my favorite movies, Shawshank Redemption, and the main character Andy Dufresne  ... "who crawled through a river of shit and came out clean on the other side". As I clean up the floor and the toilet, and everything else within spraying distance, the one thing that's getting me through the week is knowing at some point it's going to click for him--it has to. We will come out clean on the other side. My patience is being tested, and my family duties (bad pun intended) have pulled me away from my blog, social media and the big wide world of wine. So, while I'm not busy celebrating new life or being consumed with diapers and feeding schedules like my good buddy Suburban Wino (who has still miraculously and unbelievably found time to blog and tweet), I am tied up with my family and, yes, I'm sure it comes as no surprise, there are some things that will always be more important than wine. Until we sip again.

Cheers!

I should probably mention, this blog post was actually composed in the body of an email, because after 10 very long years, my old computer finally died. Not to let that be the sucker punch that would land me face down on the mat, I borrowed my 22-year-old son's laptop (or what I thought was a laptop), but discovered it didn't even have Acrobat Reader or Word. When I asked him about not having basic programs on his computer, I was informed it was a media center, not a laptop. Ahhhh. Blogging via email it is. Thanks for your patience, in fact, let's drink to it.