Dear Roger:Never Pee Alone

When you become a parent for the first time and you are all in, dedicated to the little life that is dependent upon you, one of the first bits of privacy you lose is your time alone in the bathroom. I remember as a young single mom, exhausted and stressed about every little thing I thought I was doing wrong, being worried that if my baby boy was out of my sight for even the length of time it took to take a pee, that either he would somehow choke to death on air, smother under his Tigger doll, magically rise up and then fall out of his crib then breaking his neck, or that the apartment would catch on fire and I wouldn't be there to save him, so I carried him everywhere with me, including into the bathroom. Its a proven fact that babies hate the thought of their parents taking a shower that lasts longer than 5 minutes, and he trained me to become the worlds fastest at washing, shaving the high points, drying enough to get clothes back on and then back to serving his needs before he reached full scream.
When my child became a toddler, I didn't dare leave him alone or loose in the house without supervision even if I thought he was occupied by something. I learned the hard way that a child seemingly occupied by the Wiggles one moment is the next moment often found, naked, armed with a butcher knife that was on top of the fridge, and running down a busy sidewalk screaming that he is a "NINJA!!". When I had 3 children under the age of 5 I reached the point I could go most of the day without a bathroom break and that showers at 3 a.m really aren't that bad even when interrupted by a sleepwalking toddler who casually takes a pee in the bathroom commode, leaving the door open, letting in the giant dog who then sticks his head in the shower and stands there the rest of the time staring at you while you try to finish shaving legs that haven't seen the attention of a razor for the better part of a month.
When we lived in a 1 bathroom apartment after we first moved to Portland, it was nothing short of hell. I had 5 people, 3 of them boys trying to share a bathroom, and 2 of them are consummate lock pickers. My daughter has no fear,(except of peeing her pants), and she got tired of her teen brother taking multiple half hour long showers where he would lock everyone out of the bathroom and then pretend to be deaf to our pleas. She finally just began picking the lock, going in, taking care of her business and quite often flushing a couple times for good measure just to hear him shriek. She does the same to me now that we share a bathroom, quite often wanting to carry on a conversation about whatever is going on in her life. I find it a bit distressing. The kids wander in and out with each other in the bathrooms now that we have two, and you would think that I would have some privacy, finally, but it doesn't work out that way. When I am getting ready for work in the mornings I have Benny my Boston Terrier who insists on following into the bathroom and on a couple of occasions almost into the shower as I get ready, if I lock him out, he sits outside and scratches at the door and howls until my daughter gets up and lets him in. My eldest son, when he wakes up around the same time as me is often peppering me with questions about money, my younger kids are at the door asking for help with clothes or news of what is going to be for dinner or what we are doing when they get home, its often a hunt to find who took my shaving gel, where the shampoo has gone off to, and the investigation into why my towel is wet, most of the time I dont want to know and I just end up hoping for my allotted 5 minutes , try to convince Benny that I need to shower alone, and hope that I answered all questions and phone calls before the water hits the right temperature.