(More than) Fourinarow.net

I think by now we all know that this family has a variety of bathroom “issues.”

Luke, one of my non-strikers, favors dinner time to do his business. Almost every night as we’re all sitting down, Luke makes his regularly scheduled announcement that he has to poop and runs off to do it.

Last night was no exception. While Jack, Maria and Sam were eating their dinner, Luke was in my bathroom doing what he needed to do.

Since I’m not foolish enough to attempt eating dinner with my kids without backup present, I had my hands free and took the opportunity to quiz Jack on his site words. After about the 16th word, I was paged by Luke for clean up. Quickly (you never want to leave three kids 6 and under unsupervised with food for very long) I ran and got Luke taken care of. I hurriedly left him with instructions to get his pants on and wash his hands, then join his siblings for dinner.

I went back to quizzing Jack (and an enthusiastic Maria). Minutes pass. Thirteen or so more site words. No Luke. I ran to check on him. I found him, still without pants, attempting to plunge the toilet. Awkwardly. I mean, sticking out of the toilet, the plunger is taller than he is.

Amid protests that the potty was clogged, I reprimanded him for playing around and reiterated my instructions. Again, I went back to quizzing Jack. And Maria.

A few minutes and still no Luke. I checked again. He had his pants on, but no clean hands yet. Knowing that this could go on all night, I helped get his hands clean and escorted him to the kitchen to eat his dinner. Alone. Everyone else was finished.

Fast-forward to 11 p.m. or so when I was getting ready for bed. I discovered that the toilet was, in fact, clogged. I grabbed the plunger and went to work. Nothing doing. I tried some more. Nada. I switched out plungers. NOTHING. Water was getting through, but at a very. slow. rate. I tried harder. I tried faster. I used foul language. Nothing. And, it’s not like I haven’t plunged before. With four kids, I’d consider myself somewhat of an expert at it.

I wondered… have all those wipes finally caught up with us? Better yet, how many times did Sam disappear into my room/bathroom in the last 12 hours? What items are missing from my bathroom drawers? He’s not usually out of my site for long, but with no backup during meal prep, it was probably longer than usual yesterday. Plus, really, how long does it take to drop something into the toilet anyway?

Dan should be home in a few hours. I guess we’ll find out soon enough what’s in there. I’ll plunge, but I certainly won’t attempt a toilet disassemble – that’s his job. He’s getting pretty good at it, so it should go quickly. Last time this happened it was the upstairs toilet and the clog occurred following a Big One, so we thought that was it. We plunged and waited and plunged and waited. Oh, and we snaked. I think we let it sit for two days before Dan decided that whatever was in there wasn’t going to dissolve after all. He finally took the whole thing apart.

And found a pig.

Any guess on what it might be this time?