Why my husband had to learn to disassemble toilets

My husband, who was not handy around the house at all when I met him, has gotten very good at disassembling and reassembling toilets. Why, do you ask? Well that would be because of my third son - The IMP.

What you have to realize is my older two sons are just 18 months apart so they are very attached to each other. The IMP is a little over 2 years younger than my second son and therefore almost 4 years younger than my oldest. This is just enough of a gap for The IMP to always feel left out. From the time he could toddle around he was chasing after, really trying to keep up with the older two. Well of course he didn't keep up well, so he went to a different plan of attack. Any kind of attention he can get from his big brother is at least attention in his book. So, he quickly moved to torturing them.

I can remember the day it started. The IMP was about 18 months old. My older two were sitting on the floor watching TV when the IMP walked up behind the two of them, stood right in between them, raised his hands, slapped them both in the back of the head then turned and ran the other direction. Thus the rounds of "tell him to stop not touching me" and "Mom make him stop making that clicking noise" began. He found whatever her could to really get under their skin. He's very good at it too.

Now, at 4 years old my second son was easily scared. The idea of anything creepy or crawly would freak him out. For Halloween that year I had bought this pack of huge (about the size of the palm of your hand) glow in the dark spiders that we had used to decorate the bushes in front of the house. Well, my second son tolerated them but wasn't too thrilled with them. The IMP realized this right away. After spending the day chasing his brother around the house throwing one of the rubber spiders at him, the IMP came up with a brilliant plan. My second son often woke up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. The IMP figured setting the spider on toilet would be hysterical. Well, it worked, his brother woke up went into the bathroom and proceeded to scream. He threw what ever he could in the direction of the spider, knocking it right into the bowl. He then tried to flush it away. This only lodged the spider at the base of the bowl.

This was the first time my husband had to take a toilet apart to get the stuck toy out. It was a live and learn experience. He got the toilet apart but then cracked the base when trying to put it back on the pipe. We got a new toilet out of that attempt and my husband started to become very friendly with the sales people at Home Depot. Anyway, we had a couple of more incidents with the other rubber spiders and the toilet bowl. Till my husband got fed up and went around collecting all of the rubber spiders and threw them away. Asking me to please not buy any of those silly things ever again.

Well, it didn't end there. We then had a couple of rounds of rubber dinosaurs being flushed down the toilet just for fun. After being threatened with his precious dinosaurs joining the spiders, the animals in the toilet stopped for awhile.

When The IMP was just about 4, we bought a new 2 bathroom house. We had not been in the new house three days when the downstairs toilet became clogged. We did not have to go far to find the culprit. You guessed it, the IMP, but this time he had an explanation. What we had not thought about is that during all of the hustle and bustle of moving into the house my children had been plopped in front of the TV to watch that Disney favorite "Finding Nemo." In that movie there is a line that is repeated more than a few times -- those of you with children may remember -- "All pipes lead to the ocean." Well this thought inspired The IMP. When my husband took apart the toilet this time we found a plastic dinosaur, a Lego boat, a little plastic tree and a fishing hook. Now, the fishing hook had come from a decoration left behind by the previous owners that hung above the snack bar in the family room. Which means the IMP thought this through, because he had to climb on top of the snack bar and untangle the hook from the fishing net that hung from the ceiling.

Dad: "IMP why did you flush these things down the toilet? We had a talk about this and I thought you understood you weren't supposed to flush toys down the toilet??"
IMP: "But Dad that's a plesiosaur and it belongs in the ocean. All pipes lead to the ocean you know."
Dad: " Where did you hear that?"
IMP: "Finding Nemo. All pipes lead to the ocean you know."
Dad: Try to now keep a straight face: "Oh, I didn't realize. Then why did you flush the boat and the tree?"
IMP: " Well I thought the plesiosaur might get tired of swimming so he I sent him a boat to float on. And then I remembered that plesiosaurs are plant eaters, so I sent him the tree."
Dad: Really trying to keep a straight face - he is trying to discipline his child after all. "OK, but why the fishing hook? These are sharp. You know you're not supposed play with these. And what were you doing climbing on top of the snack bar???!!!"
IMP: "After I flushed the dinosaur, the boat and the tree down, I thought that he (meaning the dinosaur) might get bored and might like to do some fishing to keep busy like Grandpa does."
Dad: Really, really trying to keep a straight face. "IMP, I don't want to see anymore toys flushed down the toilet otherwise I'll throw them away. Let set these aside for Mommy to see when she comes home."