Always Finish the Paperwork

I was just looking back at some of the posts from a period of my life that I stored in the "Let's block this out and never recall any details" part of my brain. I still can't believe I managed to teach a human to go to the bathroom in a toilet (or on a tree, bush, in the middle of the neighbor's yard in front of the neighbors, etc.) and it might be both my proudest accomplishment amidst the worst month of my life.

But there has been one last thing he needs to learn that we didn't have any luck with. Eradicating the Klingons. Sending the 1040TP Form to the IRS. Zamboni-ing the rink. I'll stop now.

I'm not sure what the exact issue was since I blocked all of that stuff out. Maybe it's lack of hand-bum coordination. Maybe we want to save toilet paper. Maybe it's the T-Rex length arms of preschoolers. Seriously, preschoolers arms are like half the length they should be compared to their torso. You will notice this every time you see kids now.

To date, it's just been let him do his own thing and wait for the emergence doing the ankle pants shuffle or with no pants at all. You help with cleanup in aisle 2, reinstall the pants, and everyone washes hands pretending it never happened. I tried a few times to explain how it works, coaching him up on crumpling up the toilet paper, selecting a dominant hand since we still don't know if he's a righty or a lefty, and front to back technique. Nothing ever sunk in. But I hoped that a day would come when he took matters into his own hand to wipe out this little problem.

Recently, he called for help, and I entered the galdiatorial arena. Gloriousness of gloriousness, I beheld all the correct paperwork, properly signed and dated with all the Is dotted and Ts crossed. I was stunned. Sure, he used the long form of the 1040TP, but all his deductions were properly accounted for. I double checked and found no errors. I happily pantsed him. Wait, maybe un-pantsed him? Is that the reverse of pantsing someone? Someone at Google needs to explain why I can't get an acceptable answer for the search term 'antonym for pantsed'.

Anywho, I put his pants back on and we celebrated like it was New Years Eve at the stroke of midnight. We kicked Mommy's office door down to proudly announce the accomplishment. There were NO thoughts of putting it in the scrapbook.

When disposing of the evidence, we ran into a small problem. Excessive paperwork often means filing errors. But being the patient, insightful, take-advantage-of-every-teaching-moment father that I am, we learned how a toilet plunger works. Sort of like a sword attacking the dragon castle, only it's really important that you keep the poisoned sword point away from you after the battle. And I can rest easier with the knowledge that my boy has learned a major life skill that he will need.

CK