I would be a horrible single mom

(Telephone rings)

Me: Hello?

Caller: Hi, I'm looking for Emily?

Me: Can I ask who's calling?

Caller: It's Nature.

Me: She's busy right now. Can I take a message?

Caller: Umm, there really is no message. Can I just talk to her?

Me: I said. She's. Busy. Can you call back in like 10 minutes? Or maybe like after 7:15? She'd have like HOURS to talk to you then.

Caller: No, this is an emergency. I need to talk to her immediately.

And so it happened that I could not hold back any longer. I hadn't vacuumed in the last hour, so I wasn't going to leave her out there to eat things off the floor, or punch her arm through the stereo cabinet glass. I debated putting her in the rocking chair, but last time she was in it she figured out how to throw herself and the chair completely forward so that she was dangling in the air held only by her lap belt with her forehead a half inch from the tile floor, screaming. No rocking chair.

I decided to put her and a toy in the hallway in front of the open bathroom door. I sit down and... she's gone. Really? You were just sitting still in the living room playing. What's two minutes doing the same thing in the hallway? So I get up, pants around my ankles, and bring her back in. I hesitate for a solid thirty seconds about putting her on the bathroom floor and then decide to do it anyway. I sit back down. She's at my feet. I look away for maybe five seconds and look down again and she has stuck her fingers between the toilet seat and the bowl. NO! I tell her. Gross. I grab her hand away and shake her toy in front of her. "Uh-oh" she says to me.

This isn't going as quickly as I would have liked. She has no interest in the toy and a whole lot of interest with the toilet. I'm trying to keep her pinned between my shins so she doesn't go head first into the bathtub or stick another hand under the toilet seat. She sticks her hand under the toilet seat again. Five second rule?

It's time to finish and I have to move my legs. I figure she'll be fine. She manages somehow to fall over and smack her face on the toilet. I know it's the real cry because there is a moment of silence while she builds up. She is sobbing. There are tears. I'm surprised it doesn't say "Kohler" on her forehead. And I'm a little tied up.

I want to pick her up but I HAVEN'T WASHED MY HANDS. I stand up. I close the lid. I flush. She is still crying on the floor. I wash my hands. She is winding down. I pick her up and she scratches the hell out of my face while throwing my glasses into the bathtub. I suppose I deserved it.

I think the problem is that the whole time I didn't really even feel bad. I mean I felt bad that she was crying, of course, but there was no blood, no apparent concussion, and really, I couldn't do a goddamn thing about it. I'd rather she have a bump on her head than E.Coli. Right?