Right on target.

Warning: I'm pretty sure most of my readers have abandoned my blog for Facebook. Jeesh, I post my debut comment on there and have like six responses within an hour. Luckily my poor little blog serves a journaling purpose so I'm not offended. Really, I'm not! Anyway, if you're still reading, be aware that if you don't care to hear about others' bathroom habits, feel free to ignore this post and go back to Facebook. You won't find me (or my bathroom stories) there.

You know how we moms remind our kids before heading out the door that they should go to the bathroom so they won't have to while we're all out and about? And you know how, when they inevitably need to go and we torture them by saying they should have gone before leaving the house they respond with a "But I didn't need to go then!" Well I think it's time my kids gave me a little dose of my own medicine. Because ever since giving birth to my oldest, I've had to go to the bathroom every single time I have entered the toy section of Target. Without exception.
It doesn't happen at Wal-mart, or Albertson's, or Costco, or any of the other stores or places I frequent with my entire clan. Just Target.

I've rearranged the order in which I shop to accommodate this strange phenonmenon. We always tackle the toy section last, because, like clockwork, I will feel the urge as soon as we approach the Barbies. Then it's an extremely uncomfortable five to ten minutes while my kids pick out a birthday present for an upcoming party, mingled with the inevitable "can we buy this?" met with defeat. But in all cases but one, I've thrown in the towel and urged my kids onward toward the front of the store so that I can relieve myself, ignoring the warnings to not bring unpaid-for merchandise into the restrooms. It's all going in.

And we all come out, myself feeling a whole lot better, my kids kind of grossed out by the fact that I shooed every last one of them into one of the disabled stalls (where else would we fit?) so that I could do my business. But I'm proud to say that my kids refrain from the eye-rolling, annoyed sort of behavior I would have displayed had they pulled the same stunt on me. I'm just waiting for the day that they ask me why I didn't go before we left home so that I can respond with a "because I didn't have to go then".