"Blue!"

I think that I've become a tad bit obsessive about our bathrooms.

Let's be honest: I know what goes on behind those closed (and often open)doors. It isn't pretty. It's primal. It can be shocking to the weak and untrained. Lol. I always worry about getting it clean.

Once an advocate for natural cleaners around our sensitive older son, I've ditched that approach in the bathroom. I have bleach sprays and bleach wipes readily available. Baby wipes are also close at hand, right next to the paper towels and the soap. Still, no matter how much I clean, I could walk into that bathroom at any point in time and--sniff--do you smell that? Does that smell off to you?

It doesn't smell fresh, that's for sure.

Does the floor feel sticky to you?

Yesterday I lingered in the cleaning section of our local grocery store, looking for inspiration. What I needed was a magic bullet--or a magic wand. Yes, I needed a magic bathroom fairy with a magic wand to take the yuck away.

It struck me that I was that bathroom fairy. Grrr.

Failing to find any magic wands on the shelf, I found some toilet bowl tablets, something I'd not tried in many years. On a whim, I decided to give them a shot. By my side, our school phobic younger son was chatting incessantly about pregnant sharks. His chatter was nonstop. Literally, nonstop.

"You are a HUMAN, mom. That means that you were pregnant for about 40 weeks," he instructed.

I did my best to ignore him. These toilet tablets were blue. Kewl.

"Reef sharks had it worse than you. They are not only WAY FATTER than you, but they are pregnant for 52 weeks."

And the tablets contained bleach. Always a plus.

"Some sharks are born in a sack. Can you imagine if I were born in a sack and you had to eat it?"

Supposedly, these things lasted for 2,000 flushes. How could I lose?

I tossed them into the cart, tuned out our son's chatter and made our way home. Home to a bathroom that soon would have a toilet with a new cleaner in it.

Take that, you filthy little bathroom monsters.

The tablets were in place not long before our older son's bus arrived. He bound in the door, discarded his shoes and socks then made his way into the bathroom. As I helped him with his pants I heard him say, "Blue!"

You betchya, kid! I was feeling smug.

"Yes. Yes, it is blue. Blue and CLEAN," I told him.

He pulled up his pants and went upstairs. Well, what the heck was that? I followed him. I followed him into the upstairs bathroom where he lifted the lid to the toilet and saw that it, too, contained blue water. He looked at me, put the lid back down and walked out of the room.

Oh no you don't, buddy! You are NOT going to skip a bathroom break!

"Aw, c'mon," I coaxed. "It's just cleaner. You can do it."

"All done," he said.

"Hey! Your favorite color is green! I bet that your yellow pee pee mixed in the potty with the blue water could turn that water green!" I exclaimed.

For a brief second, I thought I was brilliant. But, then I remembered St. Patrick's Day, when I put green food coloring into the toilet bowl as a leprechaun's surprise only to find that he held his urine until he could get to the nearest mall.

What have I done?

"Uh, mom?" I heard from our younger son in the downstairs bathroom. "Did you know that this water is blue?"

"Yes. Yes, it is blue," I said, running out of patience. "It's blue, and it is not poison. It is CLEAN my sons. Clean. You should try it out some time. You might like being clean."

"WHOAH!" I then heard little brother yell. Apparently he had found the discarded toilet tablet box in the trash. "This stuff lasts for 2,000 flushes!!"

Whoosh sounded the flush of the downstairs toilet.

"Now the blue in OUR toilet is going to last for 1,999 more flushes!" he exclaimed.

I looked at our older son. "C'mon. Let's go to the potty." I suggested.

"All done," he answered.

Flush from downstairs.

"ONE THOUSAND, NINE HUNDRED AND NINETY-EEEIIIIGGGHHHHTTT!"

Sitting down on the stairs between our two sons, I decided to cut my loses. Forget clean. At this point, I was just hoping our older son's bladder would hold long enough to last his brother's count down.