Uh Oh!

"Daddy! Daddy!"

I heard the yells just as a woman seated near the McDonald's ladies' room was whispering to me, "I think she needs you."

Its not an uncommon occurrence for my 5 year old to yell to me from the bathroom when her mother's not with us. Even in public. I was quite certain it was otherwise vacant and the seated woman assured me no one had gone in for quite a while.

Of course, I'm old hat at creeping into ladies' rooms for her "issues" but I'm still surprised to find them no cleaner than men's rooms. And this one didn't smell any better either. I guess I always envisioned that women would be neater, by nature, than men and they probably are. Just not as it pertains to public rest rooms. Yuk!

Anyway, as I approached the second of two stalls I could tell the Little One was really upset. She had the door open for me and was only in her shirt, having removed her tights and skirt and tears were streaming down her face. The problem was immediately visible. Her leotard, which she went in to change into, had partially fallen in the toilet. She explained she had placed it on top of the toilet paper dispenser to change, but it fell off and landed on the seat with some of it, perhaps a quarter, landing in the water.

When I pick her up for school on Tuesdays we only have an hour to get something in her belly and get her to gymnastics. Normally, there's time to change at school but I was held up at work and since I don't want any of the teachers to have to stay as she changed, I thought she could change at McDonald's and then eat. We've done that before to monumental success.

"We have to go home and get another leotard!" she exclaimed through her tears.

I muffled a bit of laughter. It just all seemed kind of funny. I mean, there was pee in the toilet too. I gingerly tugged the outfit out and wrapped it in toilet paper and wrapped it further in her tights so it could all be thrown into the wash. Luckily, it was cold out, so we had sweatpants for her to wear and she wore a simple white top to school so I tried to convince her to go in sweats and the long tee and get special permission from gymnastics to wear them in place of a leotard. There was simply no time to go home and make it back in time.

She was still very upset so my other option to her was to cancel the class and have her do a makeup. That wasn't a good solution either. "But I have to do gymnastics on Tuesssdaaaaay" At this point I really just wanted to get out of the ladies' room since I thought at any minute someone would come in. Plus, it stank!

She ended up going with the sweats and top. Her ability to compromise lately has increased tenfold. She's still a stubborn young lady, but I totally appreciate when she's able to go with the flow.

On the rest of the drive to gymnastics I asked if the pee in the toilet was hers. It was still kind of on my mind. It was she said. I asked about the stink too. "It was gross when I went in there" was the reply. I didn't think it was her.

Of course, gymnastics understood and allowed her to participate in sweats and a tee. They can be a bit stringent, but really, who cares? Besides, the few boys don't wear leotards.

After, on the drive home we were joking about the incident and how funny it would be later on. That didn't seem the case with her, but by the time we got home she was laughing at the whole thing and she thought it hysterical when she relayed to story to her mother.