Dilemma

When Zachary was a toddler, and grew tall enough to reach doorknobs, we did what any parents of a toddler would do – we put those obnoxious doorknob covers on all the doorknobs in the house (well, all the important doors, anyway). However, we removed the one on the downstairs bathroom when Zachary started potty training, because the worst thing we could think of was Zachary actually needing & wanting to use the potty but not being able to get the door opened. And we wanted to encourage his independence, so we felt he needed to be able to open the door on his own. That doorknob has remained naked, despite the fact that Liam is now tall enough to reach doorknobs, for the sole reason that we want Zachary to be able to go in there all by himself. However, Liam has now discovered the fun & wonderment that lives inside the bathroom. Thankfully he has not (yet) had any fun with the toilet, but we do see the light flickering on & off (he is fascinated with lights). We’ll also hear the water turn on & off (he loves washing his hands too – I think they have him brainwashed at school!), as well as Zachary yelling at him for wasting water. But the one thing he has done now – twice – is the one thing that pretty much every toddler does. Or so we thought they do, but since Zachary never did it, we thought maybe it was a myth. But no, it is not a myth – toddlers DO love to unroll the toilet paper. A couple of weeks ago Zachary came running out frantically telling me that Liam was using all the paper towels in the bathroom. After a few minutes of debating back & forth with him that there are no paper towels in there, I went in & saw for myself that Liam had unrolled a decent amount of toilet paper. It wasn’t so much that we couldn’t roll it back up, but it was enough to make us shake our heads. But yesterday, he took it to a new level. Once again, he made his way in there unsupervised (well, he was in there with Zachary, but that might as well be unsupervised), and Zachary started shouting something. I went in to see what the problem was and found just about the whole roll of toilet paper in a pile on the floor. It was too much to try & roll back up. So it’s still there. In a pile. On the floor. We just fish some out when we need it. I am not about to waste a whole roll, so we do what we have to do. So I’m back to my dilemma – keep the door where Zachary can still get in by himself (which also allows Liam free entry whenever he wants) or put the pesky doorknob cover back on & resign ourselves to granting Zachary access whenever he needs it?