Mrs. Ditchman told me that it's time I teach him to pee standing up, and to that I have no argument, as I can imagine what a challenge and a struggle it would be for her to impart this manly knowledge on her own. A dad's gotta do what a dad's gotta do, I guess, so there's no way out of it. I have to give her credit for mentioning it, though, because in the end she will be the one most likely wiping up the overspray for the next fifteen years. One would think a mother would just keep the concept to herself, as part of the vast female conspiracy to keep men from eternally leaving the toilet seat up and soaking the toilet's perimeter, but I guess they need another thing to nag the dad about. He pees all over the bathroom! You never taught him properly! He's just like you!

Of course, I'm the man for the job, as I can pee through the bathroom door keyhole while standing in the shower stall. But I've brought him in before, showed him how it goes, and he seems genuinely impressed with the act, and yet the potties were still a wee bit too high. Since I didn't think he was ready to master arcing the stream up and over the rim at such an early age, I figured we'd wait a few more inches.

But the mommy is tired of the whole time-consuming pants-down thing in public restrooms, and the nastiness of those steel public park comodes -and who can blame her? So we brought it up with the lad, gently, and told him that it's high time he learned how to go to the bathroom standing up "like the big boys do." It was met with a certain unmentionable, reserved consternation. After some discussion, it was revealed that he has some reservations about going to the bathroom standing up, at which point we realized that he thought we also meant pooping, so we had to backpedal a bit. Pooping standing up is not something I've mastered, personally, and I refuse to teach the act in any case. Gotta draw the line on the limits of Dad's wisdom somewhere.

So I anonymously looked up "education on urination", or some permutation of the phrase, on the Internet and found the suggestion to try using Cheerios as targets. Sounds fun. I'll get back to you on this.

I suspect this is among those child-rearing acts that just come up in due time and take care of themselves, but I understand that there are some cultures in the world where men don't pee standing up, so who knows? That the wall urinal is a sign of civilized society is questionable, considering that we still generally refuse to have them in our homes. (But they are available, if you want one.) And I have witnessed countless men at marathons throw decorum to the wind, aim the other way, and pee mob-like in public streets. Do a google image search on "outdoor urinal" and you will regret having exposed yourself to the depravity of man.

I guess peeing standing up is a convenience for everyone, except when it's not.

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