Daddy Mojo’s guide to the toddler/toilet relationship

Whenever you move into a new place it has most of what you want, as well as, a couple things that you have to change immediately.  Some of these changes may be inspired by you while others could be ordered by your spouse. 

One simple change that had to occur in our new house was changing out a certain toilet seat.  We went to the local home improvement store and marveled at the selection of toilet seats.  I sarcastically said, “really, what’s the difference in any of these seats, they go up and down, that’s it.”  Lo, may the home improvement albatross be hung from my neck, for there is a great difference in toilet seats that I have come to learn.

• The Whoopee Cushion  The Whoopee Cushion is the older toilet seat that has ‘cushion’ on it when you sit down.  The seat is always cold and the air gradually escapes when you sit down.  In theory this sounds great, like a pneumatic lift for your ass.   However, the Whoopee Cushion immediately dates your residence  to cro magnon times and the hissing sound is too much like having a snake loose in your bathroom.  This is the type of seat that had to be replaced in Baby Mojo’s bathroom the moment that we closed on the house. 

 

• The Clapper   The clapper is the classic toilet seat.  It’s plastic and covers the toilet, but also allows you to sit down without slipping in.  It’s called The Clapper, because, if you don’t gently lower the seat it will ‘clap’ against the toilet.

 

• The Glider  The Glider looks like The Clapper, but has a ‘soft close’ feature that makes it impossible for the toilet seat to aggressively hit the toilet.   This is good because the mere writing of ‘aggressive’ and ‘toilets’ has sent most male reader scurrying away like they’ve ridden a horse with no saddle or are still recovering from hernia surgery.

So my bride and I were in the home improvement store, I said that “what’s the diference…” comment and then discovered The Glider.  She had never seen it either.   We were like two cavemen who had just witnessed some random act of cave magic, like fire or a dinosaur in the backyard. 

We purchased The Glider for Baby Mojo’s bathroom, which replaced The Whoopee Cushion.  The rest of the bathrooms all kept their original toilet seats, The Clapper.

Baby Mojo was toddling around our bedroom the other day while I was getting ready.   I heard the familiar sound of the toilet seat going back and forth between the back of the toilet, then the seat and repeating about 10 times.

Cool, he’s done with that game, I thought as I was making the bed.  About 30 more seconds passed and he was still coo’ing and talking until it peaked with a yell, then a scream. 

I poked my head in the bathroom to see what the fuss was and Baby Mojo’s hand was stuck under the toilet seat.  The Clapper had claimed another victim.  Instead of some rogue fingers cleaning the toilet, or worse, the seat had trapped the hand of a curious toddler.  It was an iron maiden for the toddler set, a sit down hookah had momentarily trapped his left hand and he couldn’t figure out how to escape. 

I picked up The Clapper, freed his hand and reminded him that toilets are dirty.  He playfully scampered off, looking for mom’s hairbrush-and his de facto comfort ‘toy’; which he promptly threw into the toilet.