Ply-te of the Little Girls' room

The kids are at that stage where taking care of their own ablutions is the next step up the evolutionary ladder. And who would have thunk that self bum-wiping would be such a skill? And yet, I have learnt that it is, in fact, a great talent. But in encouraging them to take responsibility for this essential activity, I seemed to have failed at some point in demonstrating that a quality wipe can be so much better than a quantity wipe.

The day I found the toilet bowl overflowing with toilet paper, I tried to flush it all away. The first flush made no impact on the piles of Twinsaver Toilet ribbon  curled in the bowl. I flushed again - there was a slight movement. The third flush resulted in the level of loo-paper dropping by half. It was the fourth, and final, flush that lead to the all-clear. I knew I had to take action, or run the risk of being made bankrupt through an overwhelming toilet paper budget.

So back to the drawing board.

Four blocks of 2-ply per wipe was the immediate instruction. Meticulously we counted. One. Two. Three. Four. Tear. Wipe. One. Two. Three. Four. Tear. Wipe. And so it went.

Victory! No more overflowing toilet bowls!

Every so often I would hear a dedicated little voice drifting up the passage, carefully calculating her allotted supply of loo-roll. I was proud of this accomplishment, of course.

While patting myself on the back, the inevitable happened: the public facilities where only one ply tissue paper is available. I yanked out a length from the dispenser and handed it to my seated offspring. The look of shock and horror I received was priceless!

"Mom! That was, like 20 blocks!" she reprimanded me.

"I know," I admitted, "but this is 1-ply, and four blocks would not be enough."

She gave me a dubious look, trying to figure out at which point her mother had crawled out of cheese. How could she possibly begin to abide by the rules if they keep on changing? She shrugged her little shoulders, wiped, jumped off, and flushed.

"Mom," she said as we finished washing our hands, "I think you had better explain to me what a ply is."