Bath Time

A quick one as it's getting late and kind of tired from a long weekend. And still fighting this #$!% cold.

I've posted on the bath time routine before. That was only with Elizabeth though. The routine is quite different with Andrew in the mix.

Andrew is a very busy little guy. The shelf that runs the length of our tub is at the perfect height for him to peer at and grab things. He'll start with toys then move on to the shampoo, conditioner, body wash, body scrub, etc. It keeps him entertained which is important. Except that he is constantly up and down, up and down, grabbing something, playing with it for a minute or two, then getting back up there to grab something else. Eventually, most of the contents of the shelf ends up floating in the tub.

Since he's not walking yet, he's not all that surefooted and so I keep one hand on him at pretty much all times. We used to use a handy little seat that would keep him slightly contained. He learned pretty quickly how to climb up out of the seat which became more dangerous than just keeping him in the tub. So the seat sits on the shelf.

Elizabeth likes the seat and is still small enough to wedge herself into it. It's kind of funny. She really gets a kick out of sitting in there. It makes it easier to wash her up because she actually needs help climbing out so she's somewhat held hostage. Most of the time she doesn't use the seat, which makes it challenging to wash her up while keeping a hand on the little guy. Not to mention that she likes to "help" me wash Andrew which mostly amounts to dumping buckets of water on the little guy's head when I'm washing his hair. This amuses Elizabeth to no end. Tonight, she took it upon herself to put some conditioner on Andrew's hair as well. He didn't get any in his eyes and actually seemed to enjoy the attention from his big sister.

Washing Elizabeth's hair is exhausting. It's a constant negotiation usually resulting in my dumping water on her head and causing her to cry, "My eyes! My eyes!" It's just water. She can be quite the drama queen when she wants to be. I have to do this twice - shampoo and conditioner - because of all the frizz and knots in her hair. It's a tough routine and usually leaves me pretty exhausted/exasperated.

I had to take my hands off Andrew temporarily tonight to finish Elizabeth's hair. In the seconds that took, Andrew managed to pull himself up by the knobs of the faucet and began dancing around while shrieking with delight. I could not stop laughing. It's not all bad.

Forgot to Add: Elizabeth did something that she has never done after the bath. After she was completely ready for bed, she noticed all the toys, etc. in the tub and said that she wanted to clean it up. She hopped in the tub and proceeded to put everything back on the shelf in mostly the right places. Daddy was very pleased!

- Rich