My Two Year Old is Having Dirty Dreams

I was fortunate to spend an entire week at home recently with my family. The birth of a child allowed me to use some of my personal leave to help out around the house. I purposely did not use the word vacation because as I recall, it has been awhile, vacations are meant to be relaxing. A week at home with the kids is anything but relaxing, although I was fortunate to have the opportunity and I am most certainly not complaining about our quality time. As the week went by I found myself staying up later and later trying to get things done around the house after the kids had gone to bed. Some of them were things that had been neglected for awhile, patching up a few cracks in a wall, and some were just personal things like watching a movie I had wanted to see for a long time. On the final day of my leave I realized I should go to bed a little earlier to try and get back in the routine of working again. I went to bed and surprisingly must have fallen asleep sometime around midnight. That was very good considering I had been going to bed at two or three in the morning for the last couple of days. My sleep did not last long though as I was awakened at 2 a.m. by the sound of running water.

I didn't feel any panic at the sound of the water, rather I stayed in bed pondering the possibilities and hoping they would take care of themselves. This didn't happen so I begrudgingly climbed out of bed and headed towards the sound of the water. It turned out to be a short walk to the upstairs bathroom. Upon entering I slipped on the wet linoleum and luckily caught myself on a towel rack. This towel rack will be added to the repair list now for the next time I take any leave from work. After I gathered myself I looked at my two year old who hadn't taken any real interest in my late night acrobatics. He was standing on the toilet seat, leaning over to the sink and had both faucets cranked wide open. This I realized was the noise I had heard and the reason why I had almost broken my neck when I entered the bathroom. Of course there was also soap everywhere as a foam soap pump is pretty inviting for any child. Next began a rather brief conservation between my son and me.

"Son (I actually used his name but I will leave it out so as not to embarrass him), what are you doing?"

"I'm washing my hands Dad."

"I see that, but why are you washing your hands?"

"My hands were dirty Dad."

"Oh. How did your hands get dirty son?"

"I was playing in the mud Dad."

The washing continued as I took a brief pause to try and rationalize through my grogginess the possibilities which I had just been so plainly told by a two year old.

"Son, were you dreaming about playing in the mud?"

Suddenly the scrubbing stopped.

"I guess so Dad."

And with that he climbed down from the toilet and headed on back to his bed leaving me to turn off the faucets and mop up the floor, and counter, and mirror, and walls. He found his way back into his bed and I didn't hear from him the rest of the night. As I thought about this more I understood that this incident was of course my fault. You see, that night's bedtime story was about Rudy the Pig. Rudy plays in the mud because he is a pig and that's what pigs do. This will teach me to be a little more selective in the bedtime stories I make up for my kids. I guess I should start telling my kids ones where people vacuum or clean and see how that turns out. I know that in the future we are going to have to have some of those father and son talks, but my son having these "dirty dreams" at age two wasn't something I was prepared for.