Wrath time

It had been such a good day until bath time. I had a great meeting with a shop owner in Los Gatos and she ordered a bunch of framed prints. Then I did some work at home and headed over to Stanford to drop off the animal prints for the new waiting room in the Pediatric Oncology center. The administrator showed me where they were planning to hang them and it's going to look fantastic. Then I bought a bag of cherries and ate half the bag. And then I went to catch up with some friends at Stanford before I was on a panel for a group of young women at the Stanford Institute for General Management. We talked about what it was like 10-15 years into our careers and balancing work/family etc. I think I was a last-minute addition but I passed along some nuggets of wisdom without quashing any of their dreams of corner offices, designer strollers and imported nannies.

Then I picked up my son and we went to swim lessons which went swimmingly. And there was a new swim teacher and he was HOT. Seventeen and LOOKING GOOD. We drove back home, had some dinner, watched Clifford the Big Red Dog in Korean and then started bath time. Just at that moment my daughter comes running in. She had been at our friend's pool (the one at her condo complex where we sneak in) with her aba. They're not in the tub more than two minutes before they start bugging each other. My son has his two red washcloths and she's got a green one and a blue one. And now he wants a blue one. Sorry pal. And as I'm soaping up her hair he starts putting the washcloth on her head. She doesn't like it and I ask him to stop. He continues. I ask him again to stop. He doesn't. I grab the washcloths from him.

And he pitched a fit the likes of which I have not seen since I accidentally flushed his poop down the toilet instead of letting him do it. He screamed in the bathtub for half an hour. And there's something about the way he screams. It sounds like someone is torturing him. It's a very loud and sustained BELLOW is what it is. I just can't bear to hear it so I got my daughter out and left him in there by himself because I feared that if I'd stayed to listen any longer I would start bellowing back at him, are you KIDDING me you little shit!? You're screaming bloody murder about a goddamn washcloth. WASH CLOTH. Get over it! Or, hey, I have an idea. Why don't you try LISTENING to your mother for the first time in your life! And I went about drying and dressing my daughter while he just kept right on yelling over and over I want my red washcloths! After a few minutes I went back in and told him that he could have them back for his next bath time if he used them correctly to wash himself instead of dripping them on his sister. Nope. He wanted them back now. This is your punishment. You can have them next time. NOW! He just could not let it go. After a half hour of this his eyes are the color of the damn washcloths and he's starting to wheeze. But he stops his crying long enough for me to wash his hair and when he resumes the bellowing I leave the bathroom again. Finally he's ready to get out so I dry him off and he's very still and quiet. He gets in his pajamas and we go read a few stories including his favorite one, Sloth's Birthday Party. A modern classic. Or rather a classic from the mid-seventies that my mother-in-law found in her attic. It might be the only children's book in the world with a sloth for a main character.

And by the time he got into bed we were both exhausted. And tomorrow I have them for the whole day. I hope we all three survive.

Hydrophilia

I finally got my daughter to take a bath without sobbing. This had been going on for months making bath time, which as it is we only do every other day - sometimes every third, my least favorite part of the day, right next to mornings, drop-off, meals, being at the park and going to sleep. Just kidding. Sort of. This past Saturday we realized we had not given the kids a bath since Monday and that's gross even for us. And it's because no one wants to do it, the least of all, me.

That's because recently the only way my daughter would even get in the tub is if one of us took a bath with her and she sat on our lap. So imagine two kids and an adult in the tub. Not a lot of space to clean in the nooks and crannies.

And today was no different until I had a stroke of unparalleled genius. She started to whimper and point to my shirt and lap as if to say, I'll take off mine if you take off yours. My son was already halfway in the tub and I said, Sweetie, do you want to sit on your brother's lap? I asked my son and he liked the idea of being my helper and she agreed so I thought let's do it.

And it WORKED. She sat on his lap for about thirty seconds and giggled until he said she was too heavy and asked her to sit next to him, which she did. Next thing I know both of them are lying down in the tub with only their eyes and noses sticking out of the water.

And just as mysteriusly as she became hydrophobic, she was cured.

Pissy

I thought it would last a day or two. I was wrong. Several weeks ago (months? I've lost count.) my daughter was suddenly terrified of taking a bath. This is a girl who used to lie down in the tub so that only the tip of her face - like her nose, eyes and pursed lips - was sticking out of the water and bubbles. While my son was whining about getting his head wet she was snorkeling for tub toys. We called her the baby beluga. Then one day, seemingly out of nowhere, she freaked out about going in the bathtub. I put her in and she was literally shrieking to get out. My son was already in so I knew it wasn't too hot. It was the same as any bath day. Same amount of water. Same gnarly bath toys. But she was having none of it and made that clear with blood curdling screams. Step aside Ronald Regan, this girl is the Great Communicator.  All the while she was also ranting about poo poo. So I figured she had to go. I put a diaper on her but she didn't go. And then it occurred to me that maybe she was worried she would have to go. Two days before she had pooped in the tub which really upset her (though you'd think my son would be the one with the hang-up now. Yes doctor, I have a latent fear of floaties). 

Anyway this has been going on for a while and the only way I can get her in the tub is if I go in first which as you can imagine after a day of work and scrambling for dinner and an hour at the park, the last thing I want to do at 7:30 at night is get in a luke warm bath. A spa, sure. A sauna, no problem. As long as I'm alone. In Baden Baden. But the luke warm piss tub is not a fave. Although now she even gets nervous with me in the tub and I see her kind of holding her crotch which says to me that the feel of the water is making her want to pee but she's not comfortable peeing in the tub (she used to just pee right on her brother without a care in the world. Again, we wonder why he's not the one troubled by the bathtub). So here I am telling her, sweetie, it's okay. You can pee in the tub. I've lost my mind.

So how is this going to end? I don't want to force her but she stinks. My son went through a brief bathtub boycott when he was about her age. Younger actually. We came to understand, at least we think, that he was afraid he would go down the drain. So I sat his butt on the drain and he felt a little tickle of suction which made him laugh and maybe he realized that in fact neither his giant tushy nor the rest of him would ever fit down this drain. But his anxiety only lasted a week. This is going on months. I even put her in a  swim diaper (I mean I am pulling out all the stops here). That worked for a few minutes until she likely peed in the diaper. She's going to end up being the stinky kid at school that no one wants to be near. Just pee in the goddamn tub. We all do it. It's your one opportunity to pee standing up. You'll love it. It's liberating. 

No can do.

Bathtub conversations

I was writing the previous blog while my son was in the tub playing the other night when he started getting into a hard core dramatization with his rubber duckies. So I dropped what I was writing and just started to transcribe. This was his conversation:

• Did you make poo poo big duck?
• Yea, you didn't!
• You're a big boy.
• You need to go poop in the potty.
• You're a big duck.
• Oh no, you made poo poo in the tub little duck!
• I'm going to put my legs on you because you made poop in the tub and you're a stinko.
• Guys, stay there, I'm going to put my legs on you.
• I'm not going to change you because it's not okay.
• That's so sad.
• Should I change you? No I'm not.
• Now you're crying and you want me to change you.
• Okay fine.
• Wow, that was a big one little duckie. Let me get the wipes.
• You're done.
• Now it's your turn. Oh boy, you need wipes too.
• You guys are big boys.
• Oh shoot.
• Okay, you're done.
• I have to clean you still okay duckie?
• You can't swim now because I have to change you because there's poo poo on you.
• Mommy! I need to get out of the tub because little duck made a poo poo and it's yucky in here now.

Classic.

The Look Part 2

I changed my daughter's diaper this evening when I first smelled something foul wafting up from the kitchen floor where she was sorting tupperware. I scooped her up, put her on the changing table and took off her diaper to find only a tiny little poop. So, naively I thought, Super. A mini-poop. No mess. No rash. Lovely. What I didn't realize was that in fact she hadn't finished her business. She was between pushes.

I like to let her crawl around naked when possible to air out the ole vageen. So I'm putting away the laundry and she's in the hallway which thank god is hardwood and not carpet (you can see where I going with this). I glance over and she meets my eyes with, you guessed it, THE LOOK. Suddenly she's sitting on a giant poop. So I grab her and she's laughing and I'm laughing and my son is completely disgusted by this barbaric behavior since he is now civilized and craps in a toilet.

I clean her off and take off the onesie that now has poop on it and the shoes with poop and I wipe up the floor and dispose of the poop and put her down to continue playing while I go wash off the shirt and shoes. I come back two minutes later and she is sitting in another pile of poop, this time smeared all over her legs. So I pick her up and put her on the changing table to wipe her off again and she looks me straight in the eye and pees. And then it finally dawns on me. The girl wants a bath.

I don't bathe her everyday because I'm lazy and she doesn't get super dirty and it's just one extra thing that I have to do before 7:30 when I put her down. I try for 2-3 baths a week which I know would horrify some moms but it's winter and cold and her skin's dried out as it is. But she loves having a bath. She crawls into the bathroom and stands next to the tub waiting for me some evenings.

So I put her in the tub and she's as happy as can be when I hear a farty ripple noise coming from under her in the water and I think, what in the hell did I feed you? But, in fact, it was just her sitting on the rubber duckie. Situation averted.

The look

I'm home from work today with my daughter because she has pink eye now. So I decided to put her in the bath to get all of the gunk out of her eyes and generally give her a scrub down.

So she's in their clapping and splashing and generally enjoying herself when suddenly she gets the look.

Oh god, please don't do what I think you're doing. Baby. Seriously? You're really taking a dump in the tub?

There was a time when that would have just sent me over the edge. But at this point it's just water under the bridge. Clouds in the sky. Urine in the carpet. It is what it is. Thankfully I have purple surgical gloves just for this and other nasty occasions.

So I rinsed off baby, put her on the bathmat, dried her, got her dressed and then went in with the gloves. I won't go into the details except that it's not super easy to handle loose poop in water. So some went down the drain and some got scooped into the toilet. I mean it's no wonder the kid has pink eye. There must be trace feces all over the place. I'm someone who only uses all natural cleaning supplies but this may call for a Clorox intervention.