Tagged: bath
Heroine Withdrawal
Buddy and the Great Glass Water Sprayer
“Are you sure you don’t want to come in, Buddy?” my wife called from inside the shower.
I’d love to say the offer was directed at me in a completely different context (Giggity!), but in this case she was addressing my son.
On that particular evening my wife and I had decided that we simply were NOT into the whole bathtime ordeal, so in an effort to mix up the normal nighttime routine (and to get the kid-cleaning over with quickly) we opted for a co-shower approach, with my wife being the Wet Cop and me the Dry Cop.
My daughter, who thoroughly enjoys the shower, had already been sanitized and was now playing with her cherished set of three tiny blue rubber duckies on the shower floor, quacking happily to herself. My son, however, stood a few feet back from the glass shower door, scowling at it while wearing nothing but a diaper.
He shook his head. “No. No like shower. Scared.”
For some reason, my son has a shower phobia. I couldn’t tell you why, because he loves all other aquatic activities–baths, hand-washing, swimming, sprinklers, and especially our new water table, which, within his first ten minutes of use, prompted him to loudly declare the following rave review: “I’M HAVING FUN!!! I’M HAVING FUN!!!”
Do It
Sprawled out on my back amidst the Duplos, Thomas train tracks, and Fisher Price Little People that frequent the playroom floor, my daughter snaps me out of a momentary spaceout.
“Dah-DEE! Dah-DEE!”
Grunting, I sit up groggily to field her request. Although my wife had worked from home today, it hadn’t been any less exhausting keeping the kids occupied and quiet while she ran in and out of the room with her cell phone and laptop, straining to hear her conference calls over squawks and shrieks for juice and raisins. On this particular night, my wife had a work dinner event to attend, leaving me in charge of the day’s Closing Ceremonies with the Dynamic Duo.
“What’s up, Baby Girl?” I ask my daughter.
The pigtails she’d dismantled the moment Mommy left poked frizzily from either side of her head, totally undermining her deadly serious demeanor. “Snowman,” she insists. “All gone.”
“That’s right, Baby,” I chuckle. “The snowman’s all gone. But he’ll be back on Christmas Day.” One of our Christmas decorations is a snowman that hangs from the front doorknob. She’d taken note of it during the holiday season and every day since we’ve taken it down, she’s reminded us that it’s missing–even now, almost two months after Christmas.
And every time she does this, she blows my mind.
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but we recently celebrated the Twins’ Second Birthday, and ever since the 1st of the year, the Twins have been making cognitive leaps and bounds daily. It’s as if their neurons have all finally joined Facebook and are friending each other. Their abilities to imagine, remember, reason, and verbalize have kicked into overdrive.
My daughter breaks into a beaming, jack-o’-lantern smile and giggles, “Snowman all gone,” thrilled that Daddy has confirmed what she already knew was right.
Noticing the clock, I rise to my feet and bellow, “Okay, kids! Bath time!” Continue reading
Be Careful What You Wish Fo’
My wife and I had narrowly escaped the house with the Twins intact. We’d fed and bathed them in a hurry so we could make it on time to Thanksgiving 2: This Time, It’s Leftovers at my wife’s mother’s house, and were now en route, listening to the soothing sounds of choral squawks from the back seat over the jingle-jangle of Arizona’s perpetual Christmas music radio station.
Glancing downward at her leg, my wife felt her jeans. “My knee’s still wet from when I pulled him out of the tub and dried him,” she chuckled.
“Yeah, well, that’s better than finding poo smears on your sleeve.” I’d had to change my shirt after changing Twin diaper loads.
“Can you imagine how awesome it’s going to be when the kids can walk and we can just tell them to step out of the tub themselves?”
“Yeah, that’ll be nice.” I mused. “But that also means they’ll be able to step out of the tub whenever they want.”
“…Nuh-uh. We’ll hold them down or something.” But even she herself didn’t sound convinced.
I eyed her with a grin. “Mo’ money, mo’ problems, babe.”
I do love it when the Twins call me “Big Poppa.”
Sock Monkey Face-Five
“Mama. Mama. Mamamamama,” my wife enunciated steadily, in stark contrast to the hyperactive limb-chase she was currently undertaking–attempting to get my son’s frantic arms and legs into his pajamas.
“Thhhhhhhhhh,” he replied, creating a froth of his patented saliva bubbles.
“I think he almost got it that time,” I snarked from the rocking chair, with my daughter riding lap jockey.
Ever since my son said “Dada” for the first time (possibly because of my Chuck Norris t-shirt), my wife has been working on “Mama” with both kids, with little apparent success.
Bathtime had gone swimmingly and we were now preparing the Twins for bed. Typically, we each bathe and dress one kid, alternating them every other bath. That way, we both have equal opportunities at the completely polar-opposite bathing experiences my son and daughter have to offer. In order to better illustrate the differences, I will analogize with everyday beverages you can find around the house.
Washing our daughter is a fairly low-energy endeavor–she’s content to sit and simply enjoy the aquatic epidermal sensation. If my daughter’s bathtime were a libation, it would be a glass of fine wine–one drank at the end of a long day and savored slowly because it was so freaking expensive.
On the other hand, my son is more of a Red Bull tallboy. Put this strapping young lad in the tub and brace yourself (and him) for Olympic-sized splashes, incessant scuba diving attempts, and the golden eruption of Old Faithful. We’ve found that one hand on him at all times is the best practice, as well as mentally preparing oneself for an action sequence that would overwhelm even Michael Bay before plunging into Splash Mountain.
My wife had braved the one-boy-monsoon on this particular night, while I had handled my daughter, who, now that she was in her pajamas and NOT yet drinking The Bottle That Always Comes After Pajamas, was getting antsy.
“It’s not quite time yet, Baby Girl,” I cooed. “Hey, I have an idea. Let’s look at these animals.”
Sitting her down in the rocking chair and kneeling in front of her, I surveyed the stuffed animals congregating on the floor next to me and selected her jumbo pink Sock Monkey, which is about twice her size. She cocked an eyebrow and wrinkled her forehead, unsure about all this whole not-drinking-a-bottle business.
I nudged Pink Sock Monkey’s head in perfect cadence as I spoke in what I imagine a Pink Sock Monkey’s voice would sound like–just a few notches below falsetto.
Hi there little girl! I’m Pink Sock Monkey! I sure am hungry–do you happen to have any Pink Sock Bananas?
Get your mind out of the gutter, O Loyal Reader.
In one motion, my daughter spun away from the monkey, looked right at me, and held my gaze while batting the peripheral pink primate out of view, as if to say, “Why are you bullsh!tting me, Dad?”
I heard my wife cracking up behind me. “Smart little girl.”
Letting my ill-conceived ventriloquist dummy fall back into the pile, I chuckled and picked her up. “I guess nothing gets by you, huh?”
It was then that she swung her arm and delivered a tiny face-five to my nose.
My wife stifled a laugh.
“Thhhhhhhhhh,” bubbled my son, sporting a squinty grin.
“Babababababa,” asserted my daughter. We’re not sure if her undying love for bottles has prompted her to actually say “Baba,” if it’s just her favorite syllable, or both. Either way, with two strikes on me already, I figured I’d better swing away.
“Let’s go make some bottles, baby girl.”
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If not, remain vigilant for splashes and face-fives.
Twinfamy 