Bathroom access

For a while now - since my son has been able to crawl would be about the time started - there has been unfettered access to the bathroom in my house. This started off as pretty weird, because before kids, we generally respected each other's privacy in this realm. But Ethan sniffed us out - sorry, bad word choice there - while we were in the bathroom.

Without getting too graphic, an adult, like me, would be sitting/reading on the toilet and in would walk a little midget person grunting - okay again poor word choice - and blurting toddler sounds.
Even with these disruptions, we've rarely locked - or even closed, sometimes - the bathroom door, so when someone is in the shower or using the bathroom for any reason, the kids like to push the door open to see what's going on. For some reason, the bathroom is an exciting place for them to be, perhaps because the kids can sense that things that happen there are supposed to be private.

Now, Alison, who is 1 1/2, has discovered the joys of the faucet - by standing on the little wooden stepstool - and she likes to run the water and stick things like toys and spoons (and yesterday a plastic baggie filled with Goldfish) beneath it. This usually causes a watery mess on the counter and floor, but at least she's not crying. (This seems to be a common philosophy around here lately.)

In the meantime, we need to start having conversations with Ethan, who turns 4 in April, about "privacy." He's heard the word before, and he even knows what it means - he says, for instance, that he wants privacy when he watches a movie sometimes - but we haven't exactly done a good job explaining the idea in the context of the bathroom. We've just been lazy about it. But it's time. There have already been some embarrassing moments. We're not looking for any new ones.