In the last week or so, Beth has been doing an excellent job of: as we say, “putting her pee-pee and poopy in the potty.” (This weekend was an exception, but I won’t get into that now.) She has even graduated to wearing underpants to school, and she wears the same pair all day. Today however, she had a bit of a set back, but its hard to blame her. As a general rule, Beth has been very afraid of things that make a lot of noise; and vacuum cleaners in particular. Well for some reason the staff at her school decided that it would be a good idea to do some vacuuming while the students were in the room. Beth was caught off guard and did not react well. I understand she was quite a sight; a mostly four year old child screaming at the top of her lungs, dirty from her good time on the playground, with a steady stream running down her legs and emptying into the puddle of fear in which she stood. The appropriate response of a parent would be one of sympathy, and I swear that I was at least in part sympathetic. But when Beth confided to me later that “the vacuum scared the pee-pee out of me”, I just had to giggle a little, even if it was just to myself.