Mousetrap: a mystery blog entry in one act

Today I spent a large portion of my day chasing down a mouse, only this wasn't one of those pesky rodents that the cat drags in and drops at your feet. I was looking for the mouse to the computer. We have a wireless optical mouse for the desktop and the table it sits on is just the right height for my daughter to reach up and grab things off of. I know this sounds cute, and I guess it is if you're not the owner of the mouse, but crawling around the house on your hands and knees looking for a pointing device is no way to spend an afternoon.

After rescuing a feisty non-napping Meryl from her crib I went to go check my email. Alas, the mouse was nowhere in sight. I looked under the desk, around it, in the closet next to it and still no mouse. Meryl, who was watching me he whole time, finally said one of the new words in her growing vocabulary.

Mouse.

OK, so she knew what I was looking for, which I assumed to mean she also knew where I could find it. So I asked her, "Meryl, where's the mouse?"

Mouse.

"Yes, Sweetie, the mouse. For Dad's computer? Where is it?"

Mouse? This time she says it with an upward inflection as though she's asking me where it is.

I then proceded to wander throughout the house trying to put myself in the mind of a toddler so as to figure out where she might have deposited it. Because I, myself, am absent minded I soon start to wonder if in fact it was I who removed it from its regular spot. Would I have accidentally picked it up when I was looking for something else maybe? I quickly decided that even as scatter brained as I sometimes am, I'm not the type to have just carried a computer mouse around while doing my household bidness. A real mouse maybe but not a computer mouse.

I resorted to crawling around the floors of various rooms looking under beds and behind couches. All this time Meryl followed close behind taunting me by just saying over and over mouse mouse mouse mouse. I couldn't tell if she was implying that she too was looking for the mouse or if she remembered having the mouse or was she thinking of Goodnight Moon's young mouse in the little toyhouse [sic]? Then another time she quit saying mouse and instead said Chris, apparently claiming the mouse was taken by our termite guy whose name she learned earlier that day when she supervised him as he crawled behind our couch looking for bugs.

Cute as she was, she wasn't being much help. And to top things off this was moments before my wife was due to come home. This time is usually set aside for madly running around the house cleaning slash straightening slash kicking things under the beds and sweeping things under the rugs.

Then I had this fleeting sense of dread. You know that scene in Poltergeist where the parents are looking for little Carol Anne after her disappearance and the mom gets this contorted look on her face just before saying in this eerily quiet panick-stricken voice the swimming pool . . . oh my God . . . she's in the swimming pool ? Then Craig T. Nelson has to dive into that preconstruction mud pit that was to eventually become their pool in order to find his kid. While I wasn't concerned Meryl had fallen into a swimming pool or worse yet that I was going to have to swim around in mud with the skeletal remains of bewildered souls because someone only moved the headstones, I probably did have that same contorted look on my face.

THE POTTY!!! OH MY GOD, SHE THREW IT IN THE POTTY!!!

I dashed to the master bathroom where Meryl generally sits on the potty and I lifted the lid. Nothing but water and a bowl that I probably was supposed to have scrubbed clean before Elaine got home. I looked around the toilet thinking maybe Meryl just dunked the mouse in the potty a few times before throwing it down on the floor the way she likes to do with her rubber ducky, her socks or my toothbrush. Still no mouse.

I checked the other two bathrooms in the house. More toilets to clean but still no mouse. I looked in the shower and the bathtub. I opened bathroom cabinets, pulled open drawers, looked under folded washcloths. Nothing. Finally I gave up because time was running short and there was a bed to be made, dinner to plan for and stuff to sweep under the rug.

Once I checked the cursory house straightening off my list I went back into the room with the computer to check yet again to see if I could find the mouse. Apparently as I was tidying Meryl had taken it upon herself to bang on the keyboard just enough to bring up several blank search windows. Just seeing them made me all the more frustrated. I had no mouse to close them out. A motionless cursor poised in the upper right corner of the screen just sat their adding insult to injury. The screensaver came on but I still knew those unwanted windows were lurking behind it. I briefly tried remembering the ALT-key combinations that would work the various menus on the screen before giving up and just turning the damn thing off.

Elaine arrived home happy to see a smiling baby and the beginnings of Shrimp Scampi laid out on the kitchen counter. I explained to her that Meryl had run off with the mouse and I had looked everywhere for it to no avail. "It'll turn up," she said.

It did.

Elaine found it in Meryl's toy basket that we keep in the living room. I guess I should be happy she's the kind of kid who puts things up when she's through playing with them. She gets that from her mom. As much time as I spend playing on the computer it would make sense that my daughter saw it fit to put the mouse in the toybox. After all, that basket serves as one of my old standbys for an easy place to quickly get rid of something. Oh well.

Shrimp scampi was good. Meryl spent the evening playing and laughing in spite of not having napped. My wife and I enjoyed a good bottle of Australian Outback backseat wine and I can point and click again.

This house. Is clean.

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Georgia governor praying for rain?

I had vowed to myself that I would try and make my blog more uplifting from now on and not be such a Negative Nelson. I will revisit that ideal at some time in the near future, but I just can't go without sharing my views on this new hullabaloo going on at the Georgia Capitol building. Governor Sonny Perdue and some other muckety mucks along with a number of bible thumpers who have cashed in their common sense in exchange for piety are gathering together in order to pray for rain. Sadly, I am not making this up.

Many protesters have shown up claiming this is a violation of the First Amendment. I don't know that I buy that either. The governor's not establishing a religion. Whose to say he's not on his lunch break? If he wants to pray, that's no sweat off my back. I just think praying for rain is just plain silly.

If you believe there's a higher power that's all knowing and all powerful, doesn't said higher power already know you wish it would rain without you making a show of it? Furthermore, if the higher power (let's just call it H.P. from now on so as not to offend anyone) changes its mind and causes it to rain simply because a few political clowns down here on earth want it to, is H.P. really all powerful? Sure, H.P. could make it rain and that's a pretty neat and powerful trick, but if his opinion was swayed by Earthling petitioners, that's not evidence of omnipotence. That's evidence to the fact that others have power over H.P. You follow me?

I also am amused at the request in this case. Rain. Let's face it. It's gonna rain here in Georgia someday. We're not sure when. No one knows that. Not even WSB Channel 2 meteorologist David Chandley. But it's gonna rain. Now once it happens Governor Perdue and all his friends can take credit. Can't you just hear them all now?

It rained!
Huzzah!
Thanks to our prayer.
Glory be to Sonny and H.P. and WSB Channel 2 meteorologist David Chandley.

Praying for rain is like praying for nightfall.

Because the conservatives in this country have bedded down with the mindless theocrats, and both Democrats and Republicans often prefer shooting down the other's views as opposed to standing up for their own, I can't help but wonder if this will now become a party issue. Will Democrats encourage us to pray for continued drought simply to oppose their neighbors to the right? Or better yet, will those rebel flag-waving hayseeds crawl out of their doublewides to further share their dismay for a governor who said he'd let them vote on getting the Dukes of Hazzard emblem put back on the state flag and then reneged? They can carry signs that say SONNY LIED! SHOUT FOR DROUGHT!

Will it end up like the opening of a high school football game where two teams are each praying for their own win? Parenthetically, how does H.P. rectify that one? Is it whichever team has the most skilled players? Best looking cheerleaders? What?

This whole pray-for-rain business is just such a bunch of rubbish. Here's an idea: Instead of meeting up at the Capitol to pray for rain, head further up Peachtree St. to the Federal Reserve Bank and just lollygag around the flagpole there a while. When security comes out and asks you what you're doing, tell them you're praying for $20.
In H.P. we trust.

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Reading is fundamental

My 18-month-old daughter loves to be read to. This is reason to rejoice of course because it means that instead of turning on the television to entertain her, she brings me books to read , climbing up into my lap while wearing a big smile across her face. Sometimes she likes to be read the same books over and over several times in a row.

If you've not had the occasion to read children's books recently, specifically those geared toward toddlers, I can assure you that there are some old favorites from way back when that still remain. Margaret Wise-Brown must have a cult following with Goodnight Moon. I don't even know if she's still alive but I can assure you the three bears sitting in chairs are. So is the young mouse. Incidentally, where does the author get off making toy house one word as in "a young mouse and a little toyhouse [sic]"? I'm not passing judgment; I just think she should quote a source.

Meryl also is a fan of Everyone Poops by Taro Gomi. Really though, if you're a toddler, what's there not to like about a book that features illustrations of people pooping? Whenever I turn the page to the picture of the man pooping on the potty as he smokes a pipe and reads a newspaper, Meryl points to the picture and says Dada Dada. For the record I don't smoke a pipe.

I love the line that says, "Some poop and pay no attention." According to the picture hippopotamuses are in this category. Who knew?

There are of course other books in my kid's collection that make me cringe when she hands them to me. This may come as a surprise to many, but baby books aren't always what I would classify as page turners. This is especially true for the lift-the-flap books which without fail seem to evolve into rip-the-flap books. The books must be well written for the intended audience though because Meryl continues to bring them to me. I have to confess I'm really getting tired of Karen Katz's Where is Baby's Belly Button?

First of all, does this really qualify as a brainteaser? My kid's not two years old and she knows where her belly button is. She also likes to lift my shirt and show me where mine is. The girl knows her belly buttons. And even if she didn't, reading this book more than once seems like rereading a mystery novel over and over. I don't mean to spoil it for anyone who hasn't yet read the book but it's UNDER HER SHIRT! You find out on the last page if in fact your last page of the book still has a shirt. For us, the shirt is one of the ripped flaps, having been long retired to the trash can.

Where is Baby's Mommy? is by the same author and offers an equally intriguing storyline. When I first saw this book I thought it looked like something you might pick up off the table in the waiting room at the Department of Family and Children's Services. Turns out the baby's mommy hasn't abandoned the baby or anything; she's just playing hide-and-seek. The reader follows baby through several rooms of the house looking for Mommy. Where's Mommy? Behind the plant? No, the ball is behind the plant. Is Mommy in the closet? No, the wagon is in the closet. Yadda yadda yadda. The book has similar looking characters to those you find in Where is Baby's Belly Button? They all have gigantic baby foreheads and look a little like poorly drawn Japanime stills. Yawn.

That being said, Meryl loves it.

Personally I'm still waiting for the Montelesque heart-warming sequel Who is Baby's Daddy?

Now that's one to grown on.

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Rome and Tuscany: an outsider's perspective

Still caught up in the last throws of jetlag, wife and I have returned from a ten-day sojourn to the birthplace of Western civilization. When I say Western I don't mean like Bonanza. I mean like people whose ways aren't backward and strange.

Anyway we went to Italy, and as you can possibly imagine, my stories are many. Because I could go on for days about how wonderful the trip was, I'll try and limit myself to only a brief epistle and hit the highlights.

Our journey started with Alitalia. I wanted to like this airline. Really I did, but the cabins were in various stages of disrepair depending on what seat you were in, and the flight attendants were some surly bitches. The women flight attendants weren't any better. At one point I walked back to their secret hiding area behind the curtain to return my meal tray and utensils. One stewardess just looked at me abruptly and said NO before returning her attention to her own piss-poor airline food. Oh well, at least they got us to our destination and then stepped in to help when those lazy Air France people went on strike.

A few days in Rome proved to be a remarkable experience. I'm not normally one for monuments and museums, but this city has relics older than any I'd ever seen. It wasn't out of the ordinary to see modern buildings constructed around two thousand-year-old pillars that still remain. As I stood in the Colosseum gazing out into the arena I thought to myself you're in a building that dates back 30 years after the death of Christ.

Speaking of Rabbi Jesus, I did add yet another country to my list of places that have welcomed me with open arms, namely Vatican City. I opted against going into St. Peter's Basilica as the line was almost as long as the one at the airline ticket counter in the Rome airport thanks to those anti-work numbnuts at Air France (my wife had to wait in line eleven hours).

I did make it into the Vatican museum though. Individual artworks in this place were incredible and even the gardens it overlooks were beautiful, but a travelling friend of mine put it well when he said, "It's no wonder they had a Protestant Reformation." In just fifteen minutes the Vatican museum starts to get a little overwhelming. So much stuff. Too many notes.

In Florence I did little other than pick up a rental car and buy a few clothing items (our suitcase would not arrive for another three days). I did end up going to the large market in the center of town where I had a yummy panini and Coke Zero, or as they say in Italian Coke Zero but that was on the return trip. Florence was an easy train ride up from Rome and made for a great jumping off point for the trip through Tuscany.

Not enough wonderful things could be said about Montestigliano, the site of the restored farm house we stayed in for the bulk of our stay. Same goes for Susan Pennington who, in addition to running the place, went to great lengths to help us retrieve our suitcase from Alitalia. Because she was a native English speaker (the Queen's though; not W's) she was able to share her passion for the area with us and help us drum up some wonderful ways to spend our holiday. If you've stumbled across my innerweb site by googling Montestigliano, please oh please feel free to email me at cocktailswithkevin@hotmail.com and I'll tell you all the wonderful things about it. Better yet, just go ahead and book the place. There are eleven guest homes in all and of the people we met during our stay, everyone loved where he was staying.

In the days that followed I visited (not necessarily in this order) Chianti, Assisi, Pisa, Perugia, Sovana, Orbitello, Ercolo, Porto San Stefano, Pitigliano and You Mixed Up Sicialiano. Just kidding. I never went to Sicily. Maybe next trip.

The Chocolate Festival in Perugia was like nothing I had ever seen. For those who have never ventured beyond Hershey and Nestle, Perugia chocolate is akin to Lindt, Cadbury or Ghirardelli in that it tastes yummy and costs a pretty penny. Each year the town of Perugia hosts a chocolate festival where you can buy anything and everything so long as it contains chocolate. I got a chocolate panini complete with cocoa-laden salami and bread.

Words cannot describe the mayhem that was this festival. The entire downtown was closed off to traffic so that pedestrians could roam freely and eat their weight in chocolate. It was just surreal.

The Strada Panoramica around the coast of Porto San Stefano lead us to a frightful knuckle whitening journey bordering both the sea and our own deaths. Views were spectacular but so were our lives flashing before our eyes. If we weren't staring down a quarter mile into a watery abyss we were trying to maneuever a Mercedez A class across dangerously rough terrain without getting stuck in no-man's land without any way to call for help other than honking at passing ships.

Castelina in Chianti is a quaint little town to stop in and have a glass of its namesake, but interestingly enough the SR222, or Chianti Highway as it's affectionately known, on the way from Siena to Florence is lined with hookers. It's weird because the beautifully scenic drive is essentially desolate of people with the exception of a lone woman in tight fitting clothes and an ill fitting wig at every other pull-off. We passed.

In Assisi I saw the Cathedral of St. Francis. Now I wasn't raised Catholic so my knowledge of St. Francis before this trip was limited to what I had learned about him at Pike Nursery. He's made of indoor outdoor resin and likes birds. I do know the story of how he had preached to birds and animals, but if you think about it televangelists across the country preach to flocks of mindless sheep everyday so what's the big deal.

The cathedral, though Gothic in style, had a more modern appearance than many in the country perhaps because it underwent major restoration after an earthquake in 1997. The patron saint of animals, birds and the environment is buried in a tomb that is accessible via a double staircase going down from the nave. We saw a monk on his knees praying while he extended one hand through the grating onto the tomb. Upstairs a priest with a North American accent was giving mass in English. Again we passed.

All in all, Italy was a country I had not been particularly crazy about visiting and yet I'm so glad I took the opportunity to go. I had assumed it would be like many other Western European countries in that it has the major items on the checklist: cathedrals, castles, a famous bridge slash monument and pricey food and accomodations. Indeed Italy does have all those things, but there's something magical about the country in a way there isn't about many others. From the time of the Etruscans to the Romans to the early Church there's just a vibrancy about the place. It's like its own Mesopotamia for what we like to think of as the modern world.

Belgium is a country I've been to and won't necessarily feel the need to revisit. Same goes for Chile. They're fun places and all; I've just put a check mark by them and that's that. Italy is a country I hope to go back to. This time Elaine and I will take our kid. Hopefully she won't want to climb that bell tower in Siena. Rarely have I ever felt so sick.

Chocolate panini on its second time around is not a pretty sight.

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Language lessons for travelling abroad

In less than a week now my wife and I take off to Italy. As with any international trip I try and learn a few key phrases before I go so that I don't come across as a dumbass to everyone under the Tuscan sun. With a little practice anybody can learn to fake a few phrases well enough to get what he wants provided expectations are kept to a minimum. Czech and Hungarian were each a real doozie , but Italian seemsto me to be less problematic.

When I was teaching French I once had a band director come up to me and ask what tape series he could use to become fluent in Spanish. I held back my guffaw but I did let him know that language learning wasn't something that generally takes place through audiocassettes. To a good listener the tapes can provide a sampling of what the individual phonemes of the language sound like, but that's about it. To someone who already has a vague idea what the language sounds like, I think phrase books are more useful, but even they are quite limited.

The Berlitz phrasebook I picked up for instance has translations for Where is the passport control?; I'm here alone; and artificial sweetener. Let's just take these three for example:

No one really needs to know how to ask where passport control is. If you don't find passport control shortly after going through the customs line, passport control will most likely find you. That's if the country you're going to even cares that you've entered. On more than one occasion I've entered Europe without going through passport control. One time passport control consisted of four kepi-wearing Frogs who had their feet propped up on a table. Three of them apparently just studied the travel fashion trends of American tourists while the fourth guy just kept waving us all through the corridor with his hand. If no one asks to stamp your passport, just enjoy living off the grid.

The phrase about being here alone is found in the Romance section of the book. I'm sure there are people who venture overseas and start a budding romance, but something tells me their language skills would be above that of phrasebook level. If not, I'd fear the romance I was starting was going to end with me waking up alone and penniless in some third-rate motel or worse yet a back alley. And then there'd be that lasting itch. Yuck.

Artificial sweetener? Don' get me wrong. I use artificial sweetener too. Hell, I've already had cancer. What's the worst thats going to happen? But traveling abroad is a time to throw caution to the wind and leave some petty comfort slash obsessions at home. I'm sorry, but for me going to Italy and asking for artificial sweetener is like going to Italy and saying, "Hey, do y'all have any grits?" Until you get back home, let that shit go.

Here's what you need to know before going to a country where they speak another kind of talk. You won't likely be invited to join in on any conversations dealing with international politics or nuclear physics. You probably won't have too many conversations with locals period other than the short routine service-oriented discussions. So keep it simple.

Figure out how to say these things:

Hello (there's usually only about fourteen different ways to say this depending on time of day)
Thank you, Sir
Thank you, Ma'am
Please

Those biggies will get you much further than you think because most Americans won't even bother to learn those. You will stand out among your tennis shoe and sweatpant wearing comrades because you made an effort to be polite. Politesse always goes a long way in Europe because they frankly don't always expect it of Americans,. Of course the definition of polite varies from culture to culture but that's a whole 'nother issue.

Once you've got those phrases down you can pick up a phrasebook or look on the innerwebs to find out how to say the things you'll most likely want or need. Here are a few suggestions:

room, bed, and shower (that takes care of the hotel);
water, wine list, menu, Coke, Diet Coke (everything else will be listed on the menu once you get it)
Check please? (if you don't get this one down, just practice that fake scribbling on your hand -- as stupid as it looks this is an internationally recognized symbol.)

Other than a few other nouns that might come in handy, those are all you really need. You can always ask a question by saying the thing it is you want and tacking on please at the end. I'll be visiting the Vatican so I'll probably also try and learn The street will flow with the blood of the nonbelievers. Just kidding.

Passenger watch list, here I come.

mbick said...

First off, hello from a reader/lurker who has enjoyed your blog the past few weeks.

I agree with you that learning the most basic phrases of a foreign language will put you great lengths ahead of most Americans abroad.

I have to say, though, that when I was visiting in Rome and browsing a shop of sundries, the shopkeeper and I conducted our entire transaction of my purchase of a lighter with several nods and smiles. I think I probably was able to choke out Italian "Good morning" and "thank you." I treasure that lighter now more for the way we transacted our business that the lighter itself for function or beauty.

5:44 PM

karen said...

Haven't you been on the watch list for, like, years now?

8:28 PM

Anonymous said...

give the pope a shout out for those you are leaving in the BC to watch your baby!!

11:33 AM

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Nanaonwales screwed me over

More on this later.

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Toddler speak: repeatedly saying the same thing twice again over and over

Parenting a toddler is no easy chore, and now that words have started to come out of little Meryl's mouth, I find myself somehow devolving into a monosyllabic caveman whose vocabulary bank has been robbed. Yesterday I dropped my wife off at the airport and the conversation in the car on the ride home with Meryl went something like this:

Mama?

Mama's going out of town?

Mama?

Mom's getting on her plane, Sweetie.

Dada?

Dad's driving.

Mama?

Mama's going to Washington D.C.

Shoes?

Yep, you've got your shoes on.

Mama?

Going out of town.

Dada?

Driving.

Pizza?

No pizza today.

Mama?

Plane.

Dada?

Dad's in the car.

Car?

Car.

Mama?

Plane.

We went on like this for roughly twenty miles. We made a brief detour into Little Five Points to eat lunch and walk around, partially so Meryl could stretch her legs after being in a car seat for so long but mainly because I needed to break the monotony before being driven insane.

We parked in a meter that thankfully still had time left from the previous parker who was obviously either more paranoid of being towed than I usually am or at least less cheap. I almost never put money in parking meters. For one thing, I don't carry change and secondly I'm a scofflaw.

I learned the trick years ago from my driving instructor who came from the Taggart Driving School. He said that in the event I got a parking ticket I shouldn't pay it because it would only be $1o and if the city of Atlanta had to ever track me down to get their money it would only increase to $25 and they weren't likely to go that route. The only parking ticket I ever got was in Belgium so I don't know if the instructor's theory was correct or not. Incidentally I didn't pay the ticket I got in Belgium either.

As I open the back car door, Meryl says to me, "Car?" And thus the conversation continued:
Yes, Dad's getting you out of the car.

Shoes? Yep, you've still got both shoes on.

Mama?

Mom's out of town now. We're going to eat lunch.

[Meryl makes a smacking sound to show me she understands lunch] Pizza?

No, we had pizza yesterday.

Pizza. No.

That's right. No pizza.

Mama?

No, mom is not here. It's just you and Dad.

Little Five Points, one of Atlanta's more esoteric and nouveau hippy neighborhoods, was just opening up about the time we pulled in. Meryl and I tooled around and found ourselves hanging out among some heavily inked longhairs, one of whom had apparently just been to Starbucks. The coffee drinker just looked so hypocritically dichotomous to me. Who comes to a neighborhood as avant garde as Little Five Points so they can order something so suburbanly vanilla as Starbucks? Oh well. Who am I to judge?

Cup?

Yes, he's got a cup.

Hot?

[At this point the local chimed in.] Yeh, it's hot.

Shoes?

Yep, he's got shoes on.

[Again the guy humors Meryl with a response.] Yeh, they're flip-flops.

Someone with a key showed up and unlocked the door to a tattoo parlor slash tchotchke boutique and all the longhairs went in. Even with all the tattoos they had between them, it hadn't occurred to me that they were artists themselves. Come to think of it, it hadn't occurred to me any of them even had jobs. I'm judgmental that way. Sue me.

Meryl and I walked around some more, ate lunch at a corner tavern where she subjected fellow diners to volume ten screams and happy squeals before moving to a secluded corner table in a back room. There she littered the floor with hummus, roasted asparagas, and goat cheese pita wrap.

Yes, I'm one of those parents who isn't afraid to take his kid into a place that doesn't generally cater to children, but I try and always leave extra generous gratuity to make up for the extra work a good server is willing to do. Besides, if the restaurant has highchairs (and this one did), I take it to mean a baby's welcome.

On the drive from Little Five Points home Meryl's mood started to dwindle. Her talking turned into whining and eventually that tearless cry that denotes extreme discontent. As loud as it was, it was somewhat of a relief not to have to carry on a conversation about Mom being out of town, me driving and Meryl having both shoes on.

Just when I was about to carry her into her room and lay her in her crib she said, "Pot." We are toilet training and this means she has to go to the potty.

You wanna go sit on the potty?

Pot?

OK, Dad'll put you on the potty.

Mama?

Mom's at work. Out of town. In Washington. Dad can put you on the potty.

Pot?

Yep, here we go.

She successfully uses the potty and then looks at me with her arms up in the air.

Up?

You want up?

Up.

OK, Dad'll get you up.

Another successful bathroom visit. As we flush she looks into the swirling water and waves.

Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye.

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