The Mom Test

So ....

*ahem*

Welcome to this first meeting of the American Mothers-Including Regional Expatriates in Alternative Lands (AM-I-REAL). Thank you all for coming.

Before we get started this evening, I'd like to have everyone take one of these and pass it down your row ... there you go ... some for you ... here you are ....

Okay. Please fill out the following questionnaire using the Number 2 pencil you were instructed to bring to the meeting.

Does everyone have their pencil? No?

Well, come on up, we have a couple of extras here for anyone who has forgotten.

All right. Let's begin, shall we?

Are you a real mother?
Please indicate all steps you have completed.

[-] Conception, implantation, quickening of child
[-] Birth of child
[-] Naming child
[-] Child's first bath
[-] Nursing child
[-] Being recipient of vomit, urine, or other excreted bodily fluid
[-] Waking up to child watching you at an intimate moment
[ ] Taking child to emergency room
[-] Baptism/christening of child
[-] Toilet training child
[ ] Retrieving item child flushed down toilet

....

I thought we'd made it past the fascination with flushing stage. I really had. While she had put a few things into the toilet that required some fishing that doesn't really bear contemplating, she'd never flushed anything down. Until last night. A set of play keys. And I hadn't the slightest idea what to do about it.

I tried calling Adam, but he was in a training session at work and couldn't take the call. I tried calling my dad, but he wasn't at home. My sister wasn't answering her cell and it was too late to call my brother. Being new in town, we don't know any plumbers we could simply call for advice. So, I checked with my good friend Google. Google didn't have any great ideas either (although he told me a funny story about a woman in the Netherlands who accidentally flushed €900).

I attempted a rubber-gloved-hand-down-the-drain maneuver, but to no avail; I couldn't reach far enough to feel anything. When Adam got home, he flushed the toilet, pronounced it "fine" and said we shouldn't worry about it.

It's been used twice now. Everything has gone down okay, so far. We haven't put it through any, ah ... rigorous testing at this point. I'm a little nervous on that point.

Anybody have some experience in this area you'd like to share?