Iraqi Tea-Pee

Little known fact... Iraqi castles are full of pee. No - not the ones in Iraq the country. I mean the toy castles in MY Iraq's room.

Yes... unfortunately I am serious.

Now ask me how my day was. *sigh* I quit smoking years ago, but this is probably by far the worst cigarette craving I've had since quitting. The thought going through my head is that I either need to smoke something or run, screaming from my home. My husband is hoping I do neither (and I'm sure the neighbors would appreciate me holding back on the screaming thing).

So it all started this morning. I went into Iraq's room to encourage her to pick up a bit. I went over to where one of her toy castles was sitting on the floor and noticed I could see my reflection in 3 of the cup-like turrets. The whole thing is a mini-castle that doubles as a tea set when you remove some of the turrets. The only problem is that it wasn't tea in those turrets! I have lectured Iraq time and again about not bringing any food, water or beverages into her room... but this wasn't water, either. Taking a whiff of it, I quickly realized that it wasn't yellow Gatorade either.

Definitely a "WTF??" moment!!!

Recovering my voice (and my scalded olfactory system) I managed to ask without the use of any profanity just how the urine came to be in the castle.

Not surprisingly, I got the deer-in-the-headlights-I-dunno-blank-look.

After I very carefully relocated the castle into the bathroom and emptied it, I returned to interrogate my prisoner who looked up at me with her great big, brown eyes. When I asked her again why she had pee in her toy, in her room, she turned the water-works on and wailed "I don't know!"

"You don't know why you peed in the toy castle in your room??"

"NO!!"

So I spent the next 15 minutes explaining (as calmly as possible) why pee goes only in the toilet, how pee smells awful and can make the whole house stink, how something like this should never happen again... if you have a child in the autism spectrum, perhaps you are familiar with the "blank" look. It's really fun to explain things to the "blank" look. It's like standing in a room all by yourself, explaining something to no one just so you can feel slightly more like a bad parent for no particular reason at all.

At least I tried.

Later in the evening I went up to ask Iraq to put on her pajamas. I picked up some clothes from the floor only to discover a large smear of bright pink lipstick in the brand-new carpet we had put in last summer!

*scream*

At this point my dear husband took over the room-cleaning oversight position. This was a very kind thing for him to do... for both Iraq and me. Unfortunately, the discoveries did not stop there. While Iraq was scrubbing the lipstick out of the carpet, my husband found the rest of the urine stash... in a box... filled with stuffed animals... that Iraq loves. Well... loved.

*Insert husband's WTF moment here.*

Iraq quickly blamed the cat. The hubby brought the soiled items to me for a second opinion. Having worked as a vet tech AND as a mom, my poor olfactory system actually can tell the difference, and it was definitely a stink of human origin. So amid the howling of a child who just learned some of her prized toys were going away forever, the rest of the room was picked up and inspected for more "issues."

This was really one of "those" days! We can't attribute these happenings solely to behavioral issues - Iraq is almost 7-years-old and had all of her chap sticks and play makeup removed from her possession long ago. We don't allow her to keep anything like that in her room, and she is only supposed to use lip balm under parental supervision. She somehow managed to scale tall structures to liberate her incarcerated lipstick. There is no question in my mind that she knew full-well what the ramifications for her actions would be since we have had similar issues in the past. This isn't behavior... it's compulsion. It's autism spectrum overruling intelligent decision-making.

And the pee???  I think we can all agree that is not normal! Iraq still wets the bed at night. Every night. We've tried just about everything and will soon be investing in one of those alarms to try to end the problem. Four out of our four specialists agree that this is also an autism thing. But the pee in the toys??

Suffice it to say I will be calling Iraq's psychiatrist tomorrow as well as our Asperger's specialist who is a psychologist.

So, thus far, I have not smoked a cigarette, and I have not run from the house screaming...


But I really want to.

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