Bath time

Bath times are a nightly ritual in our house. We've given baths at the same time every night since my first child was exactly seven weeks old. I'm old school so I still use the kitchen sink as the baby tub. We have tub toys, cups and soap like all proper baby baths. Once in a while I'll even throw in a squirt toy to mix it up.

We don't spend a lot of time traveling and I'm not a big fan of putting my naked kids in other people's sinks, so my kids have had a bath only a hand full of times outside our home. Last Sunday was one of those times.

It started out innocently enough. My parents graciously offered to have us over for dinner. Being exhausted and worn out in general, my husband and I jumped at the chance to have a home cooked meal with little effort on our part. Being the polite daughter I am, I asked my mom if we could bath the girls at their house. I knew RaRa would fall asleep in the car on the way home if we didn't. Waking her up and trying to bath her would be a beast and really who wants to slay that dragon if it can be avoided?? I also knew it would allow us more time to visit and play...otherwise known as more time for other people to entertain my kids. Win win all around right?

Well, that is until we get to the part where Rhu is smearing her poop on my parents living room TV like she was Picasso working on a latest masterpiece. How's that you ask? Well, I'll explain.

We managed to get through dinner with very little food on the floor and almost none flying across the table. No mere fete outside our home setting. The girls even finished their scrumptious dinner and politely set off to play. I remember feeling proud that they were so well behaved. Rhu asked several times to, "Get down?" and listened each time I said no. Wow, this firm parenting stuff is really working. My two-year-old daughter is listening to me!! Ahhh...I sigh of relief and an inflated ego loomed as I happily cleared the dishes and helped my mom clean up dinner. The men were in charge of the two babies and things were going swimmingly.

The rest of the evening progressed nicely and the girls played well with each other. It started to get late and was time to get baths done so we could be on our way home. Visions of a happy, smiling family in our standard issue SUV traveling home with freshly scrubbed children danced in my head. I was so cocky that I was even sure the little angels would go right to bed without a peep. Oh soooo wrong.

I think I can pinpoint the downturn of events at the spot when we undressed both children. This is probably when we lost control. The kitchen sink at my parent's house is a single, so RaRa was scheduled to go first. She splashed well and my ego grew even more inflated. This was going great!! Then I heard it...the words no parent wants to hear from their spouse. It came out of the living room with a looming tone. "Uh Hun...we've got a problem." I transferred my first freshly scrubbed baby to her grandmother and went to inspect this so called problem. I figured it was something simple like spilled milk. When I rounded the corner I saw it. Brown tipped fingers on my little angel. She had poop in her diapers and now with her clothes off she was able to access this new tool of destruction.

She was quick too. Her little hands managed to gain access to the poop and smear it on the innocent television in a split second. I gasped in horror at what she had done. My visions of freshly scrubbed well-behaved children shattered as I grabbed her hands so she could not do any more destruction. All I could think was where did my perfectly behaved little angel get such an idea and how could my poor parents be laughing at this disgusting mess? But they were laughing nonetheless. My father more than my mother. He enjoys getting a chuckle out of every parenting moment in my life. Not in a vicious way, but in an "Ahhh isn't parenting fun?" kind of way. No Dad, wiping poop off your television isn't fun, but thanks for asking!

With the quickness of Santa on Christmas Eve I whisked Rhu off to the sink. I didn't even bother to prep the bath by wiping her hinnie beforehand. I plunked her down in the sink and began to pull out the hose. I poured soap all over everything and scrubbed like she had just opened an envelope laced with Anthrax. My hands were like greased lightening as I washed the little stinker. I followed up her first set of scrubbing by another and still a third. Once I felt like all the poop was gone I gave her a normal bath and issued her a towel to dry off.

Meanwhile, my husband was assigned the illustrious task of cleaning the poop and he went to work without a word. After all, the source of the poop was in my hands, so he figured he got the better deal.

Once all the poop was washed, both girls were scrubbed and dressed and the laughter subsided, it was time to leave. We gathered all of our bags, our children and what was left of our pride and began saying our good-byes. We loaded our children in the car and started off for home. I couldn't help but think what happened? We started off so well. We were prepared. But, I guess you can never prepare for everything...can you?