The trouble with you is the trouble with me

I really and truly think parenthood is karma paying you back for whatever evils you committed against your own parents as a child. In my case, I seem to be atoning not only for my own committed sins, but for those I fantasized about and never actually committed. And maybe for those of some other people too. Karma always seems to rear its ugliest head when DH is on the road for major trips (i.e. out of our time zone and lasting 3 nights or more), and he's now on the most major trip level (out of country for 6 nights).

Last night was all about battling with the girl, who is almost 4 but seems to be in a phase this week of boycotting all toilets, on the grounds that "nasty potties" (i.e. those with autoflushers) exist in the rest stops and airports of the world. The mere existence of such apparatus is apparently sufficient justification to pee in your pants even though your home, school, supermarket, and general everyday surrounds have only "nice" facilities that you flush yourself. Why it matters that there are nasty potties at all the NJ and PA Turnpike rest stops when you're not on either highway and there's a perfectly harmless but unused toilet in the next room, just isn't making sense to me, but somehow makes perfect sense to my daughter. She has inherited her mom's tendency to make up her own logic and then stick to it unswervingly despite all evidence to the contrary. I did outgrow this to some extent myself, but not until I was somewhat older. But my bizarre turns of logic in no way involved bathroom habits. So we're pretty stumped at this point as to what to do with this child. Buy her a litterbox? Let her live in the barn?

Everyone keeps telling me she won't go to kindergarten in diapers. But I could easily see her being the first....

Also, if your preschooler is going to grab a forbidden indelible Sharpie marker and doodle on something in the house, you'd better hope it's your 1920s porcelain-top kitchen table. I was able to remove the artwork without much more effort than if she'd drawn on a whiteboard. Not bad for a piece of furniture we resurrected from my in-laws' basement!