Bath time

For the first time in a long time....OK....for the first time EVER, we had a relatively peaceful bath time in our house. Granted, I only bathed 2 of the 4, but it went off well.

Usually bath time is nothing short of chaos that ends in puddles, wet clothes (mine), scoldings, yelling, crying, and exhaustion. Honestly, I would much rather have dirty kids than to go through what I usually go through.

My oldest child is old enough to shower by himself. That helps; just a little. He showers, washes his own hair, soaps up and rinses. BUT, he also stops the drain and when the water is mid-calf deep, he turns off the water to practice making tidal waves. There is usually about an inch of water on the floor. The only reason I don't get on to him to harshly is I can remember doing the same thing...and LOVING it!

My 5 year old isn't quite ready to go solo yet. He's too scared to get anything above the neck wet. It is a pain in the rump. EVERY bath time with him leads to tears. We've done cups, rags, hand, water spout cans, the little hat, towel over the eyes, looking up....you name it, we've tried it. The child always jumps up and starts to scream and stomp around. Well, that just makes me mad and since I want to get over it as soon as possible, I usually just douse him. Kind of an ugly thing to do, I know, but it's less painful in the end for me.

As you may have already guessed, these older 2 boys were not involved in the cleaning ritual. Actually, bath time was only going to be for my baby. He wasn't really that dirty, but a bottom IS a bottom and needs a certain amount of help in freshness. No sooner did I start running the water than my 3 year old came running in, stripping as he came. He was yelling "take a baff, mommom." Before I could prepare myself, he was in the water. So...2 boys in the tub. My 3 year old decided to bathe my 1 year old. The baby had cups of water poured over him several times and never made a sound.

In the end, it was helpful. When I got to where I was ready to clean them up, I realized that soap had been involved. All I had to do was rinse the baby. My 3 year old cleans up pretty easily. I got the water drained and both boys out before too much water was in the floor. And the bonus was that since I was cleaning the bathroom anyway, I just used a towel to use any water to wipe down my floor and baseboards.

Ooooooh, look at me multi-tasking!