Monday, April 09, 2007

The Least Relaxing Bath….Ever

Ok…while I can’t actually prove the hyperbole above, I can say that if anyone has a less relaxing bath story to share...I truly look forward to hearing it.

We traveled to MoMa’s house this weekend. We hadn’t been down there for some time and Easter seemed as good an excuse as any to load the child and the dog into ZaZu the Subaru and go wreak some havoc on MoMa’s house of countless grabbable/breakable trinkets.

We were somewhat uneasy about how Norah’s sleeping pattern would play out for the weekend since we’ve been engaged in a battle of wills in our household of late. Norah wakes around 1 or 2 am and screams to be picked up. We decline. We soothe her by standing close and ssshhhhing calmly. But we’ve been waiting her out, letting her scream it out. There has been progress. Lately, she hasn’t been crying so much that she pukes, for instance. But, there’s still lots of screaming involved. And, that’s great in your own home, but somewhat more annoying when you’re a houseguest.

So, as the munchkin’s bedtime approaches on Saturday night, we start getting our game plan together. Her routine calls for a bath right before bedtime and we figure it would help to follow a known pattern even in this unfamiliar place. Problem is…MoMa doesn’t have a normal-sized sub anywhere in her house. She’s got showers and one uber-jacuzzi thing. When last we were there, Norah was small enough that we bathed her in the kitchen sink. Such a trick is laughably impossible now. Ok, we say, she’ll get to use the big tub. No problem.

We start the water running and strip the child. She crawls excitedly to the edge of the bathtub and pulls her naked self up to watch the water fill the tub. It’s a very cute scene that is played out every night at the grenstead. However, this evening there was one difference.

“Whoop! She’s peeing!” calls Moonshot from behind me.

MoMa’s floor is awash in yellow as my indifferent child stares joyfully at the water in the tub. As a man with nearly 31 years of urinary experience, I can say that I would have been impressed to let loose with this deluge. Seeing it come pouring from my minuscule daughter was truly disconcerting. Further, if this is the sort of torrent she is routinely unleashing…allow me to say that I have a new found respect for the absorptive powers of Huggies.

We scurry about and wipe up the floor while MoMa goes to get the Pine-Sol.

Once we get the worst of it, I set the girl in the tub and Moonshot rolls up her jeans so she can wade through to sit on the back edge of the tub in a Norah-Defense position.

Clang!!! Some decorative piece of knick-knackery is bashed to the floor by my wife’s bum. Norah is startled and keeps trying to climb to her Mommy.

“No standing in the tub,” we tell her. It’s a mantra of sorts during her bath time these days. But she doesn’t listen. She keeps trying to stand. Moonshot opts to get the wash routine rolling before the play period…you know…in case the little one gets fussy about not being allowed to stand, we can just remove her. It is just after the soap in Norah’s hair had been worked into a good lather that she tries to stand for the final time. She slips forward, diving her face under the water. Moonshot snatches her up within half a second, but not soon enough to prevent the hysteria.

“Panic!” say Norah’s wide eyes.

“Freak-Out!!!” cries her high-pitched shriek.

And “Hrragflflflf!!!” gurgled the stream of half-digested milk shooting from her mouth to coagulate in the warm water.

“Oh, she sitting in it,” I call helpfully from the sidelines.

“I don’t really know what I can do about that right now!” shots back my wife over the howls of our daughter. “I think we just need to end this,” she says. But we can’t…the child is fully lathered, so Moonshot is frozen, holding the panicked child by the armpits. We’re looking desperately for an escape route, the least traumatizing way to rinse the child in a tub full of swirling vomit.

“Over here,” I offer. “There’s no puke in the water over here!”

We frantically scoop water from the clean half of the tub to rinse the soap from Norah’s head and the lumps of curdled formula from her legs.

I lift Norah out of the tub as Moonshot extracts herself from her perch. It is to this chaotic retreat which MoMa returns with Pine-Sol in hand, eager to watch her darling grand-daughter frolic as promised in the tub.

The up-side was that all this pandemonium and terror seems to have really done the trick with Little Lutine’s sleep. She conked out in Moonshot’s arms within minutes and didn’t make a sound until morning.

So, for any parent out there looking for a way to ensure a good night’s sleep for your child. Moonshot and I whole-heartedly recommends a soothing Jacuzzi bath before bed. Norah, on the other hand, may have other ideas.

8 comments:

Mark said...

Loved this account. Almost laughed aloud, and would have if not reading at the end of my work day.

Huggies are, indeed, amazing things.

She slept through the night? That's something to celebrate, judging against what Norah's been doing.

Simon said...

I can think of no other, less relaxing bath than that. You win, sir. Though there was this time...

...when we visited my in-laws and our eldest was just a wee sprite about Norah's age now. Dinner had concluded and Declan was sitting cheerfully in his booster seat, strapped to the kitchen chair. I removed the tray so that I might remove him, and found that he was also sitting cheerfully in a fluid pile of yesterday's dinner that had just completed its gastrointestinal migration.

Not thinking, I picked him up and he started to drip. Continuing my non-cogitation, I moved away from the chair in an escalating panicked state and he began to drip on the carpet. (My in-laws are the only people I've ever met with a carpeted kitchen.) Seeing the drippage and whither it was landing, my panic wrested complete control of my motor faculties and caused me to hold the baby out at arms' length while I sprinted for the inlaws' bedroom and its en suite with big jacuzzi tub (much like the one in your own sordid tale), my burden trailing intermittent droppings like a scatological Hansel.

I plopped the boy - clothed - in the tub, where his flailings smeared everything delightfully. My wife joined me and we decided to panic in stereo. She recovered first and suggested that we strip the boy, we strip me (since I'd not managed to evade all the drippings), and I jump into the adjoining shower stall with my son and with alacrity.

My wife was left to bundle the clothes, clean the tub, and the in-laws helped by cleaning the kitchen and hallway.

Like you now, I was also amazed at the capacity displayed for bodily fluid retention. Dear God but babies can be disgusting.

Anonymous said...

Funny stories (Simon's too), both well told. Odd, isn't it, how babies can make us witness (and participate in) such disgusting and smelly scenarios, being such lovely and sweet-smelling entities at other times?

Anonymous said...

Just another humorous episode from the annals of parenthood.

I'm going to have to come up with a few. :)

Anonymous said...

Some people pay for milk baths...not sure about curdled, partially digested milk baths though.

I liked the part in your story where Moma conveniently missed all the action and re-enters after most of the melee is finished. I think Moma was hiding behind the door snickering.


Simon's story - I even got to read Simon's story outloud to TALTAP. If given the chance, I would have read Norah's story outloud too, but TALTAP already read it. TALTAP hates to have me read to him. He insists that he knows how to read...anyway, the story was making me laugh so much that TALTAP couldn't stand not knowing what was making me so jubilus. So he actually requested that I read it to him. I was fond of the part where Simon and wife were panicked in stereo. TALTAP liked the description of being a scatological Hansel. I didn't know what scatological meant and had to look it up. That WAS funny.

Anonymous said...

My comment was lame. I'm sorry. Hey, I'm workin' with lack of sleep here!

Moksha Gren said...

Mark - Sorry it wasn't enough to overcome a day's worth of drudgery...but glad you enjoyed it.

Her sleeping is pretty hit or miss. She'll have nights that she sleeps all the way through, no problem. Then the next night she'll be up for two hours. I don't get it...but yeah, we rejoice every morning when we wake up and realize we slept the whole night.

Si - Wonderful story! I enjoyed reading it, but enjoyed just as much laying in bed on Monday night listening to Moonshot laugh from the office as she read your story. Thanks for that.

Also...I, like Taltap, loved the scatological Hansel.

Carpet in the kitchen? Madness!

Emilie - They are odd creatures, babies. I often ask my wife if she would still love me if I did half of the disgusting things that Norah does. She stalls and changes the subject. Which highlights the magical attraction that our daughter has over us. Not only do we put up with it...we wipe away the vomit and keep right on telling her she's the cutest thing in the world.

Alvis - No...it wasn't a particularly insightful comment...but they don't all have to be. I'm just glad you swung by and said hi amidst your new baby chaos. Hope you get some sleep soon.

See! See, lurkers! See how easy it is. Alvis, in his sleep deprived state barely managed a coherent sentence and I, as a blogger, am still thrilled that he took the time to say hey. Oh, that you were all a bit more like Alvis ;)

Elsa - I shall bear this in mind when next I see Taltap. I'll see if I can't find something suitable to read to him.

Taltap - See above comment to Alvis ;)

One Wink at a Time said...

Mokker, you made the whole scenario an entertaining read, you're good at that. Funny how little people can cause such big ruckusses. Amazing that Norah slept all night. I'm sure it was appreciated immensely by the entire household.
I wonder if Mark meant that he couldn't laugh outloud only because he was supposed to be working.
Alvis is a pretty ok guy, I think we all agree on that point. Sleep-deprived or not. (him - not us *wink*)