Gotta Go!

It never fails. My six-year old daughter seems to have an uncanny ability to time her "poops" for whenever we leave the house. It doesn't seem to matter where we are going or how long we are there. I know the inevitable is coming, "Mommy, I gotta go". I have visited every bathroom imaginable to mankind. The bathroom that is located after walking through an elaborate labyrinth of boxes piled sky high in stores rooms or up five flights of rickety stairs that sound like they are going to give way any second. I have endured excruciating smells, walls covered with things to horrid to imagine, floors wet with the unthinkable and bathrooms that should have had condemned signs on them. All this to ensure that my daughter can take her customary "poop".

It truly does not matter the length of the trip. A quick drive to pick up Chinese take-out...I gotta go, a ride around the block for gas...I gotta go, a dash to the library to return books...I gotta go, the movie store, the post office, the Hallmark Store...it just doesn't seem to matter.

I am not sure how to end this bizarre habit with my daughter. The worst is always the dinner out. We spend more time in the bathroom then we do at our table. There is always the first trip to just pee which is followed by the second trip to "poop" after which is the culminating trip to pee just one more time. "Is this normal," I ask myself? How come I don't see any other parents in the bathroom with their kids. I am not sure but there must be some bizarre psychological explanation for this phenomena known as the "I gotta go syndrome", but, of course, only when I am with Mommy.