If he offers to share his M&Ms, just say no.

I count heads..."Where's Ryan?"  I ask the boys.   "Bathroom," they all reply.   I turn around, getting ready to send Mr W in to get him, and out bops Ryan.  He's all excited.

"Look what I found!  Two pennies!!" he exclaims, holding them out in his hands for everyone to see.

"That's nice, sweetie,"  I say, in that absent-minded Mom way when it's not something to get hyper about, but needs a response.

"I was using the bathroom, and I sawed them at the bottom of the toilet!!  So I reached in and took them out!!"  he adds.

AAACCKK!  EWW!

The other boys start taking a few steps away from him.  "Ryan, that's gross,"  Nolan says.

"Oh, but I washed them off when I washed my hands,"  Ryan defends himself.

Mr W and I sigh, shake our heads, and move toward the exit of California Adventure.  We were headed towards Disneyland for the night.  I try not to concentrate too hard on the fact that we are by the main entrance to the Adventure park, and that a bazillion people have probably used that bathroom throughout the course of the day (it was near closing time).  I also try not to think about what kind of sicko would throw pennies into a toilet??

As we walk across the way to get in the line for the other park, the boys start running away from Mr-Toilet-Hands, and he's chasing them, and it's fun for a minute, but then it gets on my nerves, so I tell the kids: "Oh, stop it.  He said he washed his hands and the pennies with soap, so knock it off, so we can get in line without someone killing themselves on the sidewalk here."

"But I didn't use soap, Mommy!  I just rinsed them off with water."

Oy!  He can't be serious! <forehead slap> I massage my temples, and try not to think about how I talked myself out  of bringing the hand sanitizer along. 

I hand him a Wet One out of my backpack, as we have a little discussion about not picking up things we find in the toilet.  Especially in a public restroom.  And I have a little aside glance at Mr W, that says "See, I told you we couldn't trust him to go to the bathroom unsupervised."  (His brothers had gone in with him, and apparently, didn't think waiting for him was part of the deal.)

I can only hope, I'm thinking to myself, that your brothers don't decide to make a game of this when we get home.  "Let's put a dime in the toilet, and ask Ryan to get it out!!"  Yeah, that'd be good for hours and hours of fun.  <eyeroll>

This curiosity about money with the little guy has been going on for a couple of months now.  While I'm horrified that he reached for the pennies, I'm not really all that surprised.  At any rate, his curiosity about money and the ground in general paid off the next day.

"Look, I found a dollar!!!"  he announced as we waited for the monorail, waving it up towards me.

Quickly, I grab his hand, shush him, and make sure that no one was standing around him...because he didn't find 'a dollar,'  he found a twenty-dollar bill.

Hmm.  Maybe he'll get to pick some lottery numbers for me this week....and hopefully picking numbers from a hat will be as much fun as picking up pennies out of the toilet. 

But I'll be buying some hand sanitizer, just in case.