At the theatre to see Wall-e
We didn't end up staying long due to two hurdles. The first was eventually overcome; the second was the one that ended up driving us out.
The first issue was Bobbin's aversion to peeing in public restrooms. On the surface, it actually seems kinda normal and sane. Public restrooms can be putrid petri dishes of disease waiting to happen. For the most part, at least for the places we frequent, they are not. But that is not what fuels Bobbin fear. What Bobbin dislikes is the noise. Public toilets are in general noisier than private residential toilets. And there is an increasing trend in public restrooms to install the automagically flushing toilet which is supposed to detect via infrared when you have lifted your tushy from the seat and flush only when the "coast is clear" so to speak, but in reality flushes anytime you move out of the infrared eye's line of sight, regardless of whether you're still sitting on the thing or not. You can imagine that to a preschooler with an already-established fear of public toilet noise, the sudden flushing noise and swirl of water directly beneath your bottom can be pretty unsettling. Emotionally scarring, even. But this evening we came up with a system, which worked mostly because she really needed to pee and I was able to convince her she couldn't hold it long enough to get home. I brokered a deal with her. I first pointed out that the toilets were manual flush. No magic. I sat on it myself and pointed out the little metal handle, Vanna-style. I then proposed the plan: She would go potty in the toilet and then she would put herself back together and go stand waaaaaaay over by the sinks. When she got waaaaaay over by the sinks she was to call back to me "Mommy, I'm waaaaaay over by the sinks. You can flush now". I would wait for this signal and then and only then would I flush the toilet. Then we would wash our hands together and exit the restroom area.
She pondered silently and then nodded agreement, and we executed flawlessly. Mission accomplished! We even high-fived on the way out the door.
The second hurdle however, was not to be overcome and truth be told I was ok with that. Despite the movie's G-rating, there were a few too many explosions in the initial scenes for Bobbin's liking. She didn't like the loud noise, but I actually didn't relish the thought of having to explain the explosions, which were in fact caused by Wall-e's robot love interest pointing and shooting her built-in rocket-gun at anything that moved. So after a couple of these scenes Bobbin asked to go home, I quickly agreed and we left, headed for the bookstore where I let her pick out two books and a $5 pink poodle for her mastery of the public toilets.
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