Tried and True Mommy

Recently it has come to my attention that my boys can dirty up a toilet faster than you can say “Hit or Sit!”  It takes me twice as long to clean the toilet as it does for them to mess it up.  But that’s all about to change.

The other day I armed myself with toilet bowl cleaner, the scrubber and a package of sanitizing wipes and grabbed my boys.  They wanted to know if they were taking a bath and without missing a beat I told them yes, they would be taking a bath in the toilet.  After the ensuing “Ew, gross!” they stood there staring at toilet and then looked at me with my cleaning arsenal and they got the hint.

With all the patience I could muster I taught my boys how to clean the toilet, and I mean really clean the toilet.  How to not only scrub the bowl and wipe off the seat and rim, but how to clean under the tank (where my boys can shoot pee right under) and how to scrub the wall, floors and bath tub surrounding the toilet.  It was a beautiful thing!  No not the clean toilet, my kids cleaning!  I should have taken a picture.  I must have been too immersed in the cleaning battle to think about it.

In the end, my boys actually enjoyed it because of the pride they felt for a job well done.  I learned that scrubbing toilets was a job with many rewards.  My initial point was to have the boys clean the toilet so maybe they would learn how hard it was to clean up the mess they had made of it, and to be grateful that I had done it so many times for them.  Well, that’s not the lesson they took away from it, but I’m glad, because they learned something so much more valuable.  They learned the value of working hard and doing a good job.

Needless to say the toilet only stayed clean for a few hours until Bradley got up that night in a groggy state to go pee when he forgot to lift the lid to the toilet.  It was just like a horse peeing on a rock.  Yes I made him clean it up and yes he learned the lesson all over again about hard work, but also a most valuable lesson about lifting the toilet lid. :-)

I don’t think that any child who is old enough to use the potty is too young to clean it (to a certain extent).  I wouldn’t let my two and a half year old use the toilet bowl cleaning chemicals but I definitely let her wipe off the lid, tank and handle with a sanitizing wipe.  She too is learning how to work hard and do a good job and at this age she loves to be involved in the cleaning.  It takes two to three times longer for the job to get done, but the rewards are so much better than just a clean toilet!