Nick raced to the bathroom this morning to pee and cheerfully went about his business. An hour later I walked into the same room to do my own business. There was a puddle next to the toilet, and also urine all over the toilet itself, and evidence of wall usage.

I couldn’t stop the words. I yelled out to the living room. “Oh MY GOD, Nick, there’s pee everywhere! Why did you pee everywhere?? WHAT DID YOU DO, USE IT LIKE A HOSE?”

The incessant noise of dragon battle cries in the living room suddenly ceased.

I yelled again into the silence, as I started pulling Clorox wipes and fussing about. “NICK. WHY DID YOU PEE EVERYWHERE. WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME.”

I know these are empty, rhetorical questions, but sometimes I just need answers, answers that don’t exist but NEED to exist, because there has to be an explanation for all this senseless PEE in my world, otherwise the meaning of things begins to unravel and I feel like my entire life has been wasted on nothing and I go blank all over (which is still better than screaming, but far worse than grumpy).

Nick must have sensed my mood, because he yelled back an answer for a change. “I was peeing and I was holding it but then I dropped it and it went DOWN, so then I picked it up and it went UP, and then I got it in the potty. SO THAT’S WHAT HAPPENED.”

It was well-articulated and truthful. What could I say. Thank you, my tiny spawn, for rescuing me from the existential void.