Chocolate Dora's & Toothpaste Caps

Two recent stories from life with Emily...

One day last week Emily asked to sit on the potty around 4:30pm. This has been occurring sporadically--mostly just b/c she wants a piece of candy corn, which is currently the reward just for trying. She actually wanted to sit awhile, so I left to quickly attend to something else. By the time I returned she had put on a new "Dora" (Pampers Easy-Up) and almost had her pants back on. She had been eating chocolate covered raisins as a snack, and in the process a couple got smashed on the floor. Seizing the opportunity of a perfect object lesson I picked them up, dumped them in the toilet and flushed. Little did I know. Around 7:30pm I was getting the bath water ready and did a quick Dora check. I saw that it was dirty, so I told Emily to lay down so I could take it off. She started talking about "chocolate Dora's". Sure enough, when I removed her Dora the only thing it contained was 6-8 very melted chocolate covered raisins. If it weren't for the distinct smell of chocolate you would have never known. :op

Also starting last week Emily plunged forward with training toothpaste on her toothbrush (I know--I should have done it a LOT earlier.) She loves it a little too much, so we had to establish a reasonable number of times her teeth needed to be brushed and required assistance with the toothpaste. She was a little too quiet upstairs one day, and when I went to investigate I found toothpaste (gel really) dribbled all over the sink, a distinct fruitiness in the air and Emily jabbering about the cap and the drain. Indeed, I could not locate the cap. After awhile I removed the long drain cover tube thing and discovered that she had either accidentally or purposely dropped the cap down the drain. It's a wide cap designed to stand the toothpaste tube on end and is just slightly smaller than the diameter of the drain. I immediately tried to float it up like the last drain victim (see toothbrush story) by running water. It would float up about halfway and then get stuck just out of my reach. The water would back up in the sink and slowly drain away, taking the cap back down with it. After several attempts the cap sunk all the way to the bottom where it got stuck and remains there today. The only way to retrieve it and unclog the sink will be to completely dismantle the 60-year-old plumbing pipes. Not something you want to casually do. Seeing as the sink is currently used relatively little it is not high on the priority list. Sigh. For the record, the toothpaste and Emily's toothbrush are stored on the top shelf of the medicine cabinet with a mirror that opens towards the toilet. That means the only way to get at it would be for her to stand on the edge of the tub, step on the plastic storage drawer unit and then step up on to the edge of the sink where she could swing open the mirror and reach the shelf. No place is safe and unreachable for Emily!