The X and the Y

Piper discovered something this past weekend and it just makes me smile every time I think about it.  I'm not sure why I find it so amusing, but I do.  On Saturday Dan took her to Target (having been up several hours the previous night with Teagan, I appreciated this very much).  When they came home, Piper told me emphatically that she did not go potty at the store.  Dan confirmed this:  while she had announced to him and perhaps also several passersby that she needed to go potty, the trip itself had not taken place.  I asked her why.  She told me, "I need to go to the girl potty, and Daddy can't go in there."  I nodded, since that's true.  Then she said, "Daddy can go to the boy potty but I'm not a boy!"  In my head I thought, 'But you are three.'  Then again, hey, you're right, kiddo.  You're a girl.  Not a boy.  The girls' room is your room, Miss P.  I can't really argue with that.  However, it poses quite a dilemma for us as a family moving forward.

Throughout the rest of the weekend, we overviewed several possible toilet scenarios. 

'If I go to the store with you, you're a girl, so you can go to the girl potty with me.'  Yes, true. 

'If I go to the store with Hero, he's a boy, so he can't go to the potty with me.  He has to go to the boy potty.'

Yes. Also true (sort of).  But I suggested perhaps she could just go outside and pee in the grass with him.

'If I go to the store with Teagan, she can go to the girl potty too!' 

Yes, true, in theory she can go into the girl potty. 

I'm not sure what this realization will mean for us, since she seems to have become at once very aware that there are separate bathrooms based on gender and very adamant that she must go only to the appropriate potty based on her own.  Can this already be the end of Daddy being able to take her to the potty?  We hope not.  But in the meantime, I'm enjoying these conversations with her as she figures out yet another important and baffling reality about How the World Works.

Plus my status in the household has been elevated, since I now hold the proverbial key to something.