Last week Thursday morning started like any other. The new a.m. routine for us is this: Seth awakens, comes into our room and announces he has to pee. He continues to repeat this until he hears me say, ‘Well, then GO POTTY already! He then happily wanders into the master bath and does his “business.”

The other day, after he closed the door, (because suddenly he’s become modest) we heard the usual potty sounds. But then we heard silence. This typically would make me nervous and I would get out of bed to check on him. But being that I hadn’t been sleeping well the entire week and had been having migraines, I continued to lay there — too tired to get out of bed, but not exactly sleeping. After a few minutes, we heard a flush. Then more silence. Then a sploosh, and then a panicky “waahhhhh”!

Upon hearing the “sploosh” Marc and I sprung out of bed. We found Seth on the floor crying. His face, hands, and sleeves were wet. Water was flowing over the toilet rim.

Apparently, Seth felt the need to deposit about half of a roll of toilet paper into the toilet. When it became clogged, he reached in to clear the blockage. Apparently he slipped and landed face first into the toilet. But got his head out of the water long enough to scream.

It scared him senseless. But we figure it’s a blessing in disguise. At some point in his life there will be a few boys that won’t like him. And odds are good they will feel inclined to give him a “swirlie.” We figure the event won’t be nearly as ego-bruising or scarey. Afterall, it will be a familiar path – he got to do the honors himself the first time.