Commuter Mom: The Elephant in the Room

There was a pot luck dinner at Commuter Girl’s child care center this week to celebrate Thanksgiving. While I was happy to be able to go (I missed it last year) I was feeling a little stressed about making something and getting there on time. I brought hummus and pita and got there on time.

It was nice to be able to let Commuter Girl play so I could have conversations with the other parents. We see each other every day, but never have time for much more than a hello or good bye. Then the inevitable happened. Commuter Girl came over to me in tears. She was crying because her pants and sweater got wet. I couldn’t figure out what she had gotten into, so I got her to calm down and use her words to tell me what had happened. “The elephant peed on me!”

Turns out, the elephants had been in the water table earlier in the day and all of the water hadn’t drained out of them before Commuter Girl got to them. After some more tears I was able to get her to believe me that it was water and not pee. She wiped herself down with a paper towel and ran off to play with the owl puppet. We’re taking her to the zoo next week on our vacation…I wonder if she’ll be worried about the elephants.