There are many very important things we all try to teach our children. For example, I have taught Alexis that "crayon" has two syllables. Coca-Cola is "soda," not "pop." She has never, ever referred to a cart as a "buggy."
There's more. She knows that Santa wraps gifts. She puts peanut butter on both sides of a peanut butter sandwich. One of my favorite things that she gets right is that when she replaces the toilet paper roll (which she actually does do! hooray!), she puts it on so the paper goes over.
As it should be.
But there are some things that she hasn't gotten right. My repeated attempts at teaching her the ways of the world sometimes succeed, but then sometimes they fail. Sometimes they fail tremendously.
The toilet seat is to be left in an up and prepared for use position. Don't even argue with me on this one, because I'm right. The bathroom door gets closed, but the toilet lid stays up. The end.
Alexis disagrees.
It started a few months ago. Unfortunately, I learned of this earth-shattering wrongness at something like 2:00 in the morning and I DO NOT WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT OMG.
I thought it was a fluke at first, but then the behavior continued. Every time I would walk into a bathroom, the toilet lid would be down. It was like I was living with a barbarian who didn't understand how this world is supposed to work. LEAVE THE LID UP, DANGNABIT.
Night-after-night, day-after-day, I was stuck dealing with the extra effort that is a toilet lid that has been put down. It was more than a minor inconvenience because me and 2:00 in the morning have been super close friends as of late and I'm not real smart at 2:00 in the morning. 2:00 in the morning is the kind of friend that sucks your brain cells out of your head and leaves you stumbling into walls and stuff in the middle of the night.
Finally, I decided to ask Alexis what the story is because IT IS WRONG. It was time to rewrite the story and make life easier. Alexis' answer to why she started putting the lid down? "Because there's bad air in there and I don't want it to escape."
I don't even know what that means. Is toxic gas escaping her body when she uses the bathroom? Is she afraid she is going to harm others if she doesn't protect us? I DON'T KNOW. I just know that I keep trying and trying to convince the kid to come back to the happy side of the toilet lid life, but I'm getting nowhere.
And that is why I plan to remove every toilet lid in this house. I WILL WIN.