"Daddy Needs a Tampon?"

Small children like to get into everything. If there's a drawer full of knives, they're going to find it and try to open it. That's why when my son was 9-months old and he wanted to open the cabinet under the sink where nothing dangerous resides, I didn't think twice about it.

I went on folding clothes on my bed, while my little crawler rifled through towels and toilet paper. Midway through the last stack of clothes, I heard the rustling of paper and turned to see he had gotten into the tampons. So now we have several pictures of a 9-month old sitting on his butt in our bathroom with a tampon in his mouth.

The pictures actually make a nice flip book. The first frame he's torn the tampon open. The second, he's got the package in one hand and the tampon in the other. The third frame and the wrapper's on the floor, while he's pulling the applicator off. This goes on until the final three pictures I took where he's just staring at me wide-eyed with a string hanging out of his mouth.

Before a young child begins crawling, if you're home alone with the child and you have to take a shit, that child is coming with you. It's fairly harmless for the first year or so of this practice. The child can't speak. The child can't walk. They just lie there and wonder about the lights overhead, "Is that magic? They weren't bright a minute ago..."

The initial harm is only to yourself. Memories from long ago repressed in the back of your mind begin to emerge. They were hiding somewhere between pooping in the bath tub and your older sister giving you a bloody nose, but they're peeking their heads out now.

"Hey, I kind of remember being in the bathroom while my mom was taking a shit. I do. Oh man. Weird." And it makes sense. Every once in a while, everyone had to be in the bathroom while their parents shit. And the first time you take your infant in with you, you begin to remember.

Tracing the pattern in the tiles on the bathroom floor. Pretending they were highways with cars on them. Every now and again looking up to tell your mommy that it was stinky. People say that having children makes you closer to your own parents. And in this way, they're right. I can recall spraying Lysol and laughing to cover the scent of my parents' shit. Brutal.

Surely, these memories don't come from those first nine months, though. Likely, they come from right around the age my son is currently: just over two.

I came home from work last week having to use the bathroom. I entered the house, I said hello to my wife, and my son ran around the sofa to give me a hug. I asked him how his day was, and after some pleasantries, I told him to sit with his mother, because daddy has to go potty.

It's 50/50 what his response is going to be when I tell him that. Half the time it's silence, because he's preoccupied with something else. This time it was, "I'm coming!" And tiny footsteps running after me down the hallway.

I really like taking shits. It's peaceful. I read in there. I find solace in the bathroom. Until my son. He's ruined pooping. The kid wants to chat the whole time. And he asks all kinds of uncomfortable questions.

"That's daddy's wiener?"

"Yes. That's daddy's wiener. We don't talk about other people's wieners."

"You're pooping?"

"Yes, daddy's pooping."

"Why?"

"Because I ate hot dogs for lunch."

It's just a cycle of shame and strangeness.

Then he hands me toilet paper and gets mad if I don't "use" it immediately. The only saving grace to him being in the bathroom with me is when he decides that he wants to poop too.

"I need to poop, daddy." He's got a little potty training toilet in our bathroom. He hasn't successfully used it, but sometimes he likes to sit on it and pretend.

I take his pants off. I take his diaper off. He sits on the training toilet and looks at me. He grimaces and pushes. Is he finally going to poop on the toilet? He's really pushing! And he farts.

So close.

After his fart, he looks at me and tells me he needs toilet paper. And he goes into the cabinet under the sink. He pulls out a roll of toilet paper and hands me a piece, before he tears off some for himself. He touches his butt with the toilet paper and puts it in his training toilet.

Then he goes back under the sink. This time he emerges with a tampon.

"Daddy needs a tamp?"

"No, daddy doesn't need a tampon. Let's put that back, please."

"Daddy has a wiener?"

"That's right. Daddy has a wiener, so daddy doesn't need a tampon. Let's put that back."

"I need a tamp." And then I watch in fascination as my 2-year old removes the tampon from its package, lifts up his balls, and pokes himself in the taint with a tampon. He gives it two or three pokes, then takes the toilet paper out of the training toilet and wraps it around the tampon. Finally, he walks around me and throws the tampon in the garbage can.

My immediate reaction is that my wife and I need to stop bringing this kid into the bathroom with us before things get out of control. Upon further consideration, I have to smile. Because he bit me and broke my glasses today. Someday he's going to  bring his child into the bathroom with him. And when he does, that doozy of a memory will be waiting for him.