Parental Conspiracy Theory

I think…no, I’m sure…that K is actually an evil genius who is constantly making devious plans which result in the highest order of unpredictability possible.

A couple weeks ago, while at Paradise Cafe for dinner (yum), she randomly turned to me, and piped up “Mom, I have to go potty.”  Now, while elated at this turn of events, I was very startled, because she has never asked to use a public restroom before, ever.  And she actually peed!  Instead.of.using.her.pullup!  I praised effusively and tried not to let on how shocked I was.  Never, ever, let the three-year-old know how much their actions effect you.  Cardinal rule.

Anyway, last night we were out at Lonestar steakhouse having birthday dinner for FF.  After getting seated and ordering drinks, K pipes up “I have to go potty”.  And again, being the doubter I am, figured it was just a fluke because she had seen someone head that way a few minutes earlier.  Or not.  Yep, she went again, as nonchalantly as you please.  So I’m thinking, YEAH!  POTTY TRAINING BREAKTHROUGH!  but yet, just the day before, she forgot at home she was wearing regular undies and peed all over the place.   In fact, she is very reliable at home as long as she is naked, but if she is wearing anything at all on her bottom half, she does not pay attention to bodily cues at all and just goes in whatever she is wearing.  But apparently has decided that she will choose to pay attention while in public places.

Also just to throw us off, she insisted on ordering chicken fingers for dinner.  Now, she does not eat chicken, will not taste it if asked, and has gagged and nearly thrown up at the sight of it in the past.  But I was encouraged by her request to order it, so we went ahead with it.  She didn’t exactly eat it, but she did in fact taste both the chicken and the honey mustard.  Which for her, tasting something new and NOT vomiting, is an extreme rarity. 

I am concerned that the public-pottying thing is proof that motherly curses work.  Apparently when I was a wee, newly potty-trained girl, I had a bathroom fetish and claimed that I needed to go every time we were out, anywhere.  So no matter how inconvenient, I made my mom drag me to the bathroom, sometimes just for a sightseeing trip, sometimes for the real thing, but she had no way of knowing which! (insert demonic laugh)  Anyway, therefore she cursed me to have a child with the same fetish and I am fearful K’s recent development is the first indicator of a public bathroom obsession.

Furthermore, just to shake things up yet another notch, while at dinner, K blossomed into a social butterfly and was flirting with ANYONE that got within a 6 foot radius of the table.  Waitstaff, patrons, whatever.  She amped up the megawatt smile and tried to initiate conversation with anyone that would listen.  Typically she is relatively reserved when we are out…not exactly shy, but not usually trying to make friends with everyone either.  So I have no idea where that came from.  However, it did result her in receiving a gift: a lovely hot pink “sheriff badge” pin from one of the waitresses.  K went NUTS over it.  I kept thinking that my daughter had received her first piece of FLAIR, and was envisioning her rich future in waiting tables at chain restaurants that deal in manufactured fun.