I can think of WAY more fun ways to spend $800 bucks!

Crockett has always been a curious child. He has always been a romer. You know, the kid that you can't take your eyes off of for a second because when you turn back around your house will be burnt down. Yeah, that kind of kid. Which brings a certain story to mind........


Six months after we moved into our house, Crockett was just over 2 years old and he began that phase where he wanted to put things in the toilet. Trey was in and out of the bathroom alot still getting used to going potty on his own and I didn't want to keep the bathroom door locked. Every so often, I would realize Crockett wasn't around and I would find him in the bathroom doing multiple things. Once I found the following items in the toilet.........two entire double rolls of toilet paper (not unrolled), his sipee cup, Treys toothbrush, a small shoe, and all the garbage from the small bathroom garbage can. At any other time I might find five or six hot wheels, a thomas train or maybe a sock or some coloring book papers and a few crayons. We spanked hands, we did time outs and we scolded but to no avail.


I had gone out with my girlfriends to a jewelry type party of some kind and Wendy brought her kids to my house and was gonna babysit until John got home. The kids were playing and Wendy was in the living room watching tv. Morgan was going back and forth from Treys room to the living room playing with the kids. Trey walks into the living room where Morgan and Wendy were talking and says, "Crocketts going Potty." This was around the time that Trey was still talking a little jabber and was somewhat hard to understand and it took Wendy a few seconds to realize what Trey said. All of a sudden she understood, jumped off the couch and ran into the hallway on the way to the bathroom and there was water sloshing up out of the carpet. As she peered into the bathroom, Crockett was standing over the toilet with a look of horror on his face and there was several inches of water on the floor. He had thrown a brand new roll of toilet paper in the toilet and it had stopped up the hole and then he flushed and flushed and flushed it until it overflowed.


I got the call while I was at the party and by the time I got home my mom and dad were there surveying the damage. The water had gone from the bathroom into the hallway and halfway into both Trey and Crocketts rooms and into Crocketts closet which is right beside the bathroom. I didn't have a clue what to do. John was still at work and it didn't look like he would be getting off anytime soon. My dad finally took care of the issue. He pulled the carpet up and we put some fans on the stuff underneath so it wouldn't mildew or stink and so it would go ahead and dry.



A few weeks later I was at home with the boys and I was doing laundry. I heard the toilet flushing and figured it was Trey. I glanced into the bathroom as I walked by on my way to put up clothes. Crockett was standing in the bathroom once again.......only this time he had NOTHING in his hand. I looked into the toilet and there were five cars piled up in the hole. I sighed, thankful that they were too heavy to go through the pipe, held my breath and reached my hand into the toilet to pull them out. After I got them out, I flushed the toilet and it ran extremely slow. I got the plunger and plunged for a while. That didn't work so I got the snake thing we bought and had already used five or six times in about a week. That didnt work either but atleast I knew something was stuck in the crook cause it wouldnt force whatever it was down. I called John to let him know what was going on and he said I would have to call a plumber. We called Mitch Wright and they came out that day. They tried their industrial snake thing. They tried that for about 30 minutes and still couldn't get it. So he said he would have to remove the toilet and see if he could reach up in there and pull whatever it was out. I stood by and watched as he lay on the front lawn with his arm reaching up into the crook of the potty. And then we found the culprit...........It was Clairabelle.......you know, the coach that Thomas the Tank Engine pulls.......and she was stuck and was NOT coming out without breaking the toilet.

We had to get another toilet. The guy offered to break the toilet to get Clairabelle out but I asked him not to because I could see the same thing happen again. It was $800 buck to replace that toilet!! A toilet that was barely a day over 6 months old and we had to replace it.

I could have taken the whole family on a train coach and paid to name it Clairabelle for the price of that dern toilet. Such is life of a parent!