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.