DOUBLE NEGATIVE LAND

There isn’t much that three-year olds aren’t excited about. And that’s a double negative. So, what I’m really saying is that three-year old humans are excited about pretty much . . . well . . . everything. 

Learning to jump with two feet is a huge deal.

Finally being tall enough to reach the soap dispenser in the church bathroom is an occasion.

Knowing all the words to Twinkle, Twinkle is cause for celebration and often a little dancing.

Or as one little girl told me Sunday, “Sissa [Sister] Zern I can turn the sink water on now ‘cuz I’m on my way to being an adult.”

“That’s true, Raelyn, that’s true,” I said. 

She skipped out of the bathroom, the hem of her dress neatly tucked into the back of her princess panties.

There isn’t much three-year olds don’t want to do by themselves. I can “do it” they often say: like go into a bathroom stall, lock the door, completely undress, climb onto the potty, and then decide they “need help.”

When my grandson, Conner, was three it was my job to escort him to the bathroom during our church meeting.

“I can do it,” he would say.

“Are you sure?”

“I do it.”

“Okay,” I agreed. “But don’t lock the door, just in case, okay? Please. Please. YaYa looks pretty stupid crawling around on the bathroom floor.”

“I do it.”

Then he’d enter the bathroom stall and CLICK, lock the door, completely undress, climb on the potty, and . . .

“YaYa?”

The sound of my head banging against the LOCKED stall door reverberated. 

“Yes, Conner.”

“I need help.”

There isn’t much that I can’t stand more than the floor of a public bathroom. And that’s a tortured double negative, meaning that I hate crawling under bathroom stall doors in a skirt, heels, and panty hose. But I’m the YaYa and Conner was in luck. I’m pretty small. I fit. And I did crawl.

The best part of this story is that a friend of mine heard me warning my Sunday school class not to lock the doors so that I wouldn’t have to crawl under their doors to rescue them. She let me in on the big secret.

“You can open the doors from the outside.”

“What??????”

“Sure, see that slot in the door. Just get a quarter and twist.” She ripped a paper towel free and dried her hands.

“Do you have any idea how long . . .” I paused. “Never mind.”

There isn’t much that I don’t like learning. Especially, a better way to rescue three-year olds from behind locked bathroom stall doors. 

I am a Sunday school teacher. I teach three-year olds the right way to live and be happy. A lot of the time they teach me the same thing.

Linda (Rescue Me) Zern