The Outhouse

The last two Sundays we have gone to church in Nordegg at the historic church that was built in 1936. It is a cute little one room church that has a small addition on the side where they have the Sunday school class. It is a small church body, last week there was 11 adults and 7 kids, this week there was 14 adults and Joelle and Liam made up the Sunday school this week. In this beautiful little church there is no indoor plumbing but there is a little outhouse around the back of the church. Joelle decided while we were moving that she would start potty training, during the sermon Joelle comes busting out of the Sunday school room (which is right behind where the pastor stands) and announces loud enough for everyone to hear that she has to pee... I grab her coat and boots and try to get her out to the outhouse as fast as I can. At first she was really upset because she did not want to wear her jacket, so I quickly explained that the washroom was outside and we had to go find it. This got her into her jacket and boots and we were running out the door. It had snowed alot this week so I picked Joelle up and dashed through the yard to the little white outhouse in the back. To me it looked like any other outhouse, a toilet lid, a bucket that holds the toilet paper and some hand sanitizer. To Joelle this was a whole new fun adventure. Being a 3 year old comes with a lot of questions..."where is the toilet mommy?" "Right here Joelle, see the lid lifts up." Joelle giggled with delight at this new toilet. As I lifted the lid the whole under side of the lid was covered in 2 inch crystals, and the seat was frozen and frosty as well. After trying to scrape some of the frost off the seat I decided it was not worth my time and just held her over the hole. Once she was done she asked "Where is the flush?" I explained that we just put the lid back down and that is the flush...more giggling...."Mommy where is the sink and water soap?" I then had to point out the rather cold hand sanitizer that we used and started our venture back to the front doors of the church. When we reached the doors Joelle announces she had to pee again, I said no because we were just there so she said she had to poo...I picked her up again and made the trek back to the little outhouse that I will never go in in the summer because it will smell worse than any outhouse I have ever been in due to over use. Again more giggling when she sees the outhouse we begin the whole process again, same questions with lots of giggles and smiles. I finally convince her that we don't want to spend all day in the outhouse and we should go back to Sunday school. Once again we began the walk through the yard back to the church. Stories like this make me take pause and think about how amazing life is to children, and how they see things from a different point of view than we do. I don't think I will ever be as excited about the outhouse as Joelle was today. Yet it makes me think about things I see and do all the time without giving them a second thought and I try to imagine what it would be like for Joelle. One big amazing adventure.

 The Church in Nordegg

Joelle's Outhouse