My daughter loves water. She enjoys any activity involving water, such as:

• Playing in water
• Putting toys in water
• Splashing water
• Pouring water

And she doesn't discriminate; juice, milk, chocolate milk, and any other liquid available to her will work just fine. So earlier this morning while I was fixing coffee she decided to set up her own water-based play center. She took her plastic tea set and plastic cupcakes to the bathroom and dumped them into the toilet. I discovered her setting up her tea party and I know she was upset when, instead of joining her party, I called "T", my husband, in from the other room to assist in the toy removal. We managed to get all toys out of the toilet, including a molded plastic cupcake topper that had only ever looked like chocolate icing up until that moment.

After cleaning up and disinfecting ourselves and the entire bathroom, we went on with our day as usual. After lunch I had forgotten about the incident. Then I tried to flush the toilet and discovered there was a problem. So I tried to attack it with the plunger. Then T tried to fix it. Then we gave up and thought we would have to either unbolt the toilet from the floor (is that even how you fix a problem like that?) or sell the house. Before actually making any crazy fix-it-yourself mistakes we called our neighbor, who always seems to be able to help out when help is needed. He came over with a tool of some kind that he used to fish out whatever was causing this horrible headache-causing problem and lo-and-behold -- a teapot lid! I could have sworn we had removed all of the toys, but apparently I was wrong.

When I am faced with problems like this and am angry or frustrated because of something my daughter did or didn't do, I try to remember one thing. This is a problem that only parents can experience. Putting things into perspective like that always helps me smile and remember how truly lucky I am to have her in my life.