A New Reason To Be Sent To Time-Out

I never in a million years thought I would have the following experience:

We are through with family night a little late tonight and we still have to eat dinner and bathe the kids. During dinner, I bathe Jack because he can hardly keep his eyes open any longer and he's getting pretty ornery. So, I finally join the family for dinner just as they are finishing up. Austin had started working on building some shelves for our linen closet, so he is out in the garage. I send the girls up to start their bath. I hear the water go on and then less than a minute later, I hear blood curdling screaming coming from Paige. I bolt upstairs, figuring she has burned herself with hot water. I am yelling "Get out of the water!! Get out of the bathtub!" as I'm running up the stairs. I run into the bathroom and I can see steam coming up from the bath water and that the dial is turned 100% to hot and my mind starts racing about how to treat burns, expecting to find Paige with bright red or blistered skin. I glance around and I can't see her at first (because I'm expecting to see her in the tub) and I find her on the toilet, naked. I'm thinking, "That's a weird place to be after you've just been burned." I glance at her and she's dripping wet, but not appearing to be burned and I'm just confused. I ask her if she got burned and she says the following sentence...one which I never thought I'd ever hear: "No, I'm not burned! Spencer just peed all over me!" At this point, several emotions run over me: 1) Relief she's not burned 2)Anger that she's screaming like someone had just ripped her fingernails off when she was in no pain whatsoever 3)Shock that Spencer really just peed all over his sister and 4)Humor...I've never wanted to laugh while been so angry at the same time. Of course, my anger won over my laughter because I sure didn't want Spencer to think that that was funny. He is standing in my bedroom about 3 feet from the entrance to my bathroom with this look on his face like "I have no idea why I just did that...please don't be mad at me, Mom". I finally conclude that once the bathwater had been turned on, they both realized that they needed to go to the bathroom. They both run over to the toilet and realize that they have competition for its use and since Paige was already undressed, she was quickly able to slip in front of him and beat him to it. Well, as Austin later explained to me, once a boy's equipment is out and the brain has sent the signal that "it's time", there is pretty much no way to stop it. Since he had probably already gotten to that point when Paige slipped in front of him, he no longer had control and all over her it goes! Seriously!?! Have you ever had to send a child to time-out for peeing all over his sister? I had originally assumed that he just did it on purpose, so against the wall he went in his underwear and socks. Once I finally calmed down and came to my senses, I had to leave the room for fear of laughing my head off! I later talked to Paige about how that kind of screaming can only be used for real emergencies. She said to me, "Mom, has something ever happened to you that just made you so mad and so frustrated and you just don't know what to do that you just start crying really hard? Mom, I just didn't know what to do when he started tinkling all over me!" I'm not sure that I would've reacted much better! It goes right up there with things you only experience because you're a parent...like finding a half-eaten bowl of oatmeal in your bed, under your covers. Ahhh, the joys of parenthood!:)