Public declarations on personal hygiene

It seems that strangers have stopped commenting on Alice's eyes and now comment on how clearly she articulates her words for her age. This can be both good and bad.

(1) Imagine you're in an airport bathroom, washing your hands. The place is crowded with travelers. Right next to your elbow on an improvised changing table is a small girl whose mother has finished wiping the child's messy bum and now is wrestling a fresh diaper into place. Suddenly a little voice rises up from the prone figure:

"Uh oh. I need to use the toilet."

The mother, aware that everyone nearby has heard this perfectly clear sentence and is watching, can't just pull up the child's pants and ignore the comment but now has to wait in line for one of the stalls, lest she seem to be ignoring her child's bodily needs. Indeed, you prefer not to stand close any longer, lest an accident soon occur. Never mind that if could you follow the mother and child in into the stall, you would discover that the child, having been stripped down and propped up on the paper-lined seat, in fact had no more business to attend to.

(2) Imagine you're attending a lovely service of lessons and carols to begin your advent season. In the pew in front of you a small child is lying in its mother's arms with its face tucked toward the mother's belly. Asleep? Who knows. At least the child is not disrupting the choir.

Until, in a hushed moment, the child sits up, announces, "I need to brush my teeth!" and starts smacking her lips and sticking out her tongue as if trying to get rid of an awful taste. Oh so that's what's going on up there...