he says, all smiles, over and over, until you wet his sweep and pass it to him. Which I often do when I only need to finish brushing my teeth, or putting on makeup, or whatsoever it is I`m trying to achieve at the bathroom sink. Evan loves wetting his brush ended and over under the running faucet, and he loves showing you his glistening white teeth when he`s finished. This amounts to saying "Seeee!" and then sticking his knife out, so that all you see is pink tongue and no white teeth, but you cook it anyway and say "Wow, Evan! Look at those nice clean teeth!" and he beams and runs away. Anyway, the matter about handing my toddler something in a distracted state (the way I usually am when I`ve come into the can to attain some way of personal hygiene as quick as possible) is that I sometimes do not fully register that I`m handing it to him. And couple my distraction with the natural distracted tendencies of said toddler, and I often find the toothbrush 20 minutes later on the kitchen floor, or the playroom floor, or any act of places where people`s feet are alleged to be, not people`s toothbrushes. (I know, Ick. Just wait. So now I distractedly gave him his toothbrush. Ten minutes after the trinity of us were in the living room where I was talking to Kostyn and I noticed Evan was still gnawing on it. I was about to ask him for it when he looked at me, took the toothbrush out of his talk and said, "More." Then he made a beeline for the bathroom. I reached him only as he lifted the can lid and said "Wawer," poised to launch his toothbrush into the toilet. "Noooo!" I yelled so ferociously that I frightened him. He jumped, looking at me, and his lip quivered as if he might cry. For an instant I was glad I`d gotten there only in time, and so I remembered that he`d only said "more" in the living room. As in, "Mmmm, that tasted sorta interesting. If anyone needs me I`ll be in the bathroom dunking my toothbrush into the pot again." I grabbed the toothbrush and said, as calmly as I could, "Evan, no. This water is yucky. We never never never put anything in the potty." "O-Tay," he said. "Did you put your toothbrush in here?" I asked. "Nooooo," he said, shaking his head solemnly. I wanted to trust him. Mostly because I couldn`t figure out how I was going to BOIL HIS MOUTH, which was the future goal my motherly instinct was telling me to accomplish. But so I noticed the drops of water all over the potty seat. "Evan, did you put your toothbrush in here, to get it wet? Did you wet your toothbrush in the pot?" I asked. "Yeaaaah," he said, and you could say that until around 10 seconds ago he had been pretty proud of this display of independence and ingenuity. I threw the toothbrush into the pass as if it were on fire, and allowed myself five seconds to do that ridiculous tongue-flapping "grossed out" dance we chicks do when we`ve seen or touched something that`s either wicked or has several more legs than we do. Then I shut the lid of the throne and scooped up my son, carrying him into the kitchen to boil his mouth. "Don`t ever, ever, EVER put anything in the potty, OK Evan?" I said. "No, no, no. The toilet is dirty. Yuck." "Yut," he said. "That`s right, yuck!" "Yut!" he said, faking disgust to please Mommy. Then because I couldn`t figure out how to boil is mouth, I boiled his toothbrush. (And his brother`s, for full measure. And I vowed to do two things from now on:
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