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I am NOT Going to Change Any Diapers!

These are the words that my five-year-old daughter said to me the other night with adamant conviction. At first, I attempted to patiently explain to her that this is something that all parents do and as unpleasant as it is, we do it anyway. She responded: "Well, I am not going to change diapers, no way."

So my response to her was simple "In that case, here is my wish for you - that you experience everything that I have." Of course, she wanted to know what I meant by this, and not some flim-flam round about theory either. She wanted specifics. So I told her:

• I hope that someday you spend hours upon hours squashed into a tiny bathroom, perched on the floor, while your potty-training son holds you hostage on whether or not he will decide to 'make' in the potty. And when you can finally take no more and remove him from his throne, your son immediately, upon three seconds of putting on his diaper, 'makes' in the diaper, requiring that you now not only change the diaper, but admit that the hours you spent on the bathroom floor were about as useful watching paint dry.
• I hope that you take your family to a restaurant and, when your child has to use the public toilet, something goes so terribly awry that you willingly toss the child's underpants into the garbage, determining that your dignity is worth the price of a new pair.
• I hope that you, for a brief time, become a prisoner, where your entire life revolves around how much time has passed between the last potty experience and the next. I hope you find yourself computing the minutes to the grocery store, seriously determining if there is enough time before your son shouts from the back seat "I have to go!" And you will then experience the panic and heart-thumping that comes with the knowledge that you have about five seconds from those words to get to a bathroom.
• I hope that you are sitting down to dinner when a little voice shouts "Will somebody wipe my bottom!" and you must attend to certain activities that will ruin your appetite for hours.
• I hope that someday your little potty-training girl decides, for some reason, to remove her pull-up in her brother's room and has an accident on his carefully lined up army of Power Rangers. Of course, I also hope that the brother, upon seeing his prized possessions horribly fouled, freaks out and you find yourself standing at the sink, bathing an army of Power Rangers as if they are precious china. As you clean each crevice with soap and an old toothbrush, I hope your son stands watching and critiquing your efforts.

But my greatest wish for you (I told my daughter) is that after a particularly horrendous experience where you have performed an act so horrific that you sit, stony-eyed, unable to comprehend the magnitude of what you have become and what you have done, you will remember that I wished all this for you. And as you promise yourself that you will never speak of the things you've just done to another living soul, you will straighten your shoulders with an inexplicable pride. You did what was called on; you can do anything for your child and you will do it again, without complaint, because your child needs you. And I hope that you will realize that this is what I truly wished for you - that you might someday feel this strange pride, this soul warming feeling that comes with knowing you can and will do everything your kids need you to do because you love them with a passion that you could never have comprehended before you were 'Mom'.