It is such a shame that overzealous mommies are no longer able to take pictures of their munchkins in the tub for fear of being arrested as pedophiles. I mean, doesn’t everyone want to go to their home page on Facebook and look to the right and see album after album of another kid taking a bath? I guess we will have to settle for beach shots for now….
Bath time at our house rocks. I can throw all three of them into the tub together. I am not sure how much longer I am going to be able to get away with this, but I am going to enjoy it until it is no longer possible. It gets a little complicated when one of them wants to swim like a mermaid, one wants to pour water like he is making tea, and the third has figured out he can stand up and put his mouth on the spout, but still, it is so much easier to do them all at once. And I use regular soap and tearless shampoo. Back in the day I might have used special organic freshly squeezed shampoo from an all natural country spring, and soap that was made by herbalists with Earth’s greatest gifts, but now I’m good if I just use something without any of my hair stuck to it. And forget matching towels and washcloths. Just the other night I wrapped baby up in a wedding present from 1997.
Getting ready could take about thirty minutes when you factor in filling up the tub, catching all three children, finding clean pajamas, digging for towels and all the fun toys and cleaning products. Then you have to factor in that they are my kids, so one of them dumps a bag of marshmallows in while another one watches and laughs.
The toys they make for the bathtub or the coolest. There are bathtub numbers, letters, and globes. A couple of Christmases ago my kids got a set of floating dolphins that you hit and they play classical music. I’m telling you, some of my home schooling friends could have all their lessons in the bathroom. If you want to be cheap about it or are paranoid about mildew, then just get some pots and spoons. They also love the funnel and the measuring cups; it’s not like their mommy uses any of it to bake from scratch.
Washing hair and soaping with wash clothes should not be as complicated as it is. It is becoming an assembly line and a competition. They try to pour their own water on their heads and close their eyes. Then it becomes, “I didn’t cry! Did you cry?” “Ha! The baby didn’t cry either.” They are ready for games like “Uncle!” when they get to the public school playground.
The tub is also a great opportunity for therapy homework. When Frances was two, she would not “sit still.” Now part of the problem with that is that when you tell a general pediatrician, “My two year old won’t sit still,” they laugh at you. But my child literally flitted from one thing to the next all day everyday and then repeated the actions. Yet another red flag I didn’t see. In the bathtub she was trapped without screaming to get out. She also enjoyed the feeling of the water. Therefore, I was able to do all of the suggestions from the therapists and books I was reading but getting nowhere with.
Aside from the wonderful letters and numbers, two of my favorite items were and still are soap foam and bathtub crayons. (OK, before I go any further, neat freak mommies, all you have to do is the minute they are done in the tub, wipe it all down with a Clorox clean up wipe or just water, but it does all come off, even for slacker mommies like me the next day). The soap foam is wonderful for drawing in. You can practice your letters, your shapes, getting dirty, and drawing people. Right now she is working on spelling her name. Last year she worked on circles and Xs, so it grows with you. It’s dirt cheap at Wal-Mart. The crayons in the tub are the only way I can get her to draw and practice her grasp. She still wants to fist her pencils. I have to be careful that these sessions do not become “screeching mommy time.” The fun is lost if you spend your bath time screaming “Don’t drink the water!” and “Don’t eat the soap!” We don’t live in poor conditions. I do try to keep it to a minimum, but still, there are worse things to eat and drink.
I know someday they are going to be able to take their own bath, put on their own pajamas, and brush their own teeth. That is going to be awesome, but right now, I have to capitalize on another opportunity to trash the house and have fun doing it. And we say Calgon takes us away…..
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Comments (2)
My daughter loves bath time too, she can spend hours in there, given the opportunity. I fill it full of bubbles and she picks up handfuls and blows them off her hand so they float around. Another game she enjoys is playing 'Countdown' - don't know if you have it in the US, but it is a numbers and letters TV game where the contestants have to work out the longest words from the random letters they are given, and work out how to reach a target number by calculating a set of randomly picked numbers. Anyway, she has those foam letters, which she picks out and sticks onto the tiles, saying each letter as she goes. That's how she learned her letters
As for the bath pics, I have photos in the album of both of my kids in the bath, all the classic poses like spikey hair full of shampoo
Awesome! When my daughter was six weeks old she would scream and scream and the minute I put her in the little infant tub of warm water she would stop and stare at me. Sometimes we did it three times a day. I have pictures at the pool and the beach that I post for friends, but there is something about the bathtub that makes me feel like I would accidentally end up on Oprah.