Public Restrooms

Being the mother of two young children I now look at public restrooms differently- germ-o-rama. Now I should preface this by saying that public restrooms have never really bothered me- many a drunken night at a bar or deperately needing to pee every five minutes when I was pregnant- there was no time to put the paper toilet cover on, or plaster the seat with toilet paper like my mom used to do when I was young and hovering- yeah, well when you weigh an extra 20 plus pounds with a baby sitting on your bladder I think that is just ridiculous. Anyway, now that I am older and wiser (maybe not, maybe just care more about what my children are touching) the trip to the bathroom starts when we enter the store.



"mommy, I have to pee".



"of course you do".



mind you she has used the bathroom at home right before we left.



I head the big double stroller towards the bathroom repeating over and over again, "don't touch anything, don't touch anything".



Now attempting to open the door to the bathroom and maneuver my double stroller inside is a feat in it of itself. (oh and when it is in the middle of winter and we are all bundled up that is the best- I am now sweating and we haven't even been out of the house for a full hour yet!) so we make it to the biggest of the handicap toilets, which still doesn't want to accomodate my double stroller so I push it in as far as it will go, door still ajar and proceed to look for the paper toilet cover to which there are none (of course). I reach my hand up the toilet paper wheel because of course there is no toilet paper hanging down and start to pull off sheets of paper, what I think are sheets but are just shreds. By now my daughter is starting to wander around the stall and I am still saying, "don't touch anything, don't touch anything". I decide to hover her over the toilet and out comes one tiny drop- "I'm all done mommy".



"of course you are".



I maneuver the stroller out of the stall and help Olivia wash her hands. The sinks are those that you place your hands under and water automatically comes out- fabulous! except I picked the one freakin' sink that is broken and Olivia and I are frantically waving our hands under the spout with no water coming out. Still holding her up in front of me, I shuffle us down to another sink where luckily the water pours out but no soap in the dispenser! I finally just give her some hand sanitizer and a paper towel and call it a day. Done right? No I still have to get the luxury cruiser out of the bathroom. I open the door with my butt (thank goodness for the extra padding- comes in handy) and pull the stroller out while a woman is waiting to come in to the bathroom- do you think she could hold the door for me. NO! good for you lady, stand there looking annoyed while I have just completed the ultimate mom marathon. Thanks. By this time I have no idea what store I am in or what I came for.



As a side note I would like to offer this suggestion to the engineers that design these bathrooms: could you make all the the features in the bathroom hands free- the toilet should automatically flush, the soap should dispense when you place your hands under it, same with the water and either a hand blower that you do not have to touch or a paper towel dispenser you wave to- I really like those. Then as a final touch could you put a door in that you have to push out so when you exit you don't have to touch the handle. I have yet to find a bathroom with all of these features together and I have pretty much visited all of them in Dutchess County between pregnancy and potty training. It does me no good to put soap on my hands and turn on the faucet and then turn it off, only to push the lever on the paper towel dispenser and then pull the handle of the door.

Thank you Purell.