This is the first post in my series on Things I Know About Boys.
In Australia, the toilet is known as many things. Dunny, loo, thunderbox to name but a few. In our house it’s loo.
For some reason which completely defeats me, my youngest boy Bruce will hold on until the very last minute before tearing off yelling, “I’m just going to the loo!”. Prior to that however, I have noticed the signs. The inability to sit still, jigging around and clutching his shorts.
I say “Do you need to go to the toilet?”.
He says “No”.
<repeat this several times over the course of approximately 15 minutes with a few variations, such as “Are you sure you don’t need to go to the loo?”>
Eventually he will tear off down to the loo in a funny run, taking 2 little steps for each normal step as if that’s going to stop him from needing to go.
Once in there, the boys disappear for ages. Squidge, oblivious to the odours, will sit, playing games using his hands for exploding ships, guns or Transformers and making sounds of explosions, gun fire, and people arguing.
Bruce on the other hand is a more social creature and would appreciate visitors when he’s on the loo. That’s why, I presume, he yells out to us from in there, starting conversations or asking questions that are so left field I wonder how they popped in to his brain. At first I’m usually sucked in to it and I yell back answers until eventually I crack and call out “Stop yelling at me from the loo, finish, come out and then we can talk!”. At the top of my lungs of course.
Loo conversations don’t seem to happen at any other time though. They are unique. A time when they get to just sit and think with no toys or distractions (we eschew the magazine in the toilet at our house).
Interestingly, both boys require almost a shoehorn to get them out of there which is frustrating when you’ve tried so long to get them to be in there in the first place.
Squidge has the bladder of a camel. Perhaps, internally, he has a hump where he stores all the fluid. He denies needing to go to the loo first thing in the morning and even now when we tell him firmly that he really must go he mutters “Why won’t you believe me?!”. The reason why we don’t believe him comes when he does eventually empty that bladder.
In April 2009 we visited Perth Zoo and were really quite stunned when a rhino (see below – warning the image is rather graphic) reversed up to the viewing area and proceeded to do the longest wee known to man, or rhino, for that matter. It went on for ages. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call it a torrent of wee (good on us for having the presence of mind to take a photo).
Weeing rhino, Perth Zoo
Squidge is the rhino of our family. Especially first thing in the morning or immediately after school. Once he’s been made to go of course. Because we don’t believe him when he says he doesn’t need to go even after 10 hours sleep or a toilet-less day at school.
A much relieved rhino, Perth Zoo
So there you have it. That’s what I know about boys and toilets. At least what I can put down in a blog post anyway. What about at your house? And are girls in any way similar?
