How to Shower

You think this is a simple task, a luxurious, relaxing part of your day. Then you have a kid. Then you have another one. Then you debate how necessary showering really is. I was alarmed to find that there were many strange aspects of pregnancy that no one tells you about and I tried to discuss those at length on this forum. (Speaking of, you might be interested to know that my hair is shedding like a Laborador right now from pregnancy.) There are also aspects of child raising, particularly if you stay at home with the little nose miners, that people fail to tell you how to deal with. Such as....showering, our topic at hand.

I know a lot of people about have their first kid, like my buddy Jen over here. Here's how it plays out:

First child is born. You suddenly believe that you have absolutely no time to yourself and you wonder how on earth you are ever going to bathe again. The only chance you have to bathe is while they are napping, which is only 30-45 minutes at a time, and you are so paranoid that you have to monitor them constantly, thereby jumping out of your shower and racing to the crib at any squeak or peep, hair dripping, naked, unshaven. Bygones.

Soon, you learn that the naptime is precious, don't waste it showering. You realize that the bouncy chair is your friend. Park child in chair and let them bounce and look around while you bathe. This will last until about 4 months and you stay clean and shiny, AND you get the naptimes for important things, like email.

Around four months, they get bored and whiny. You have to add some sort of entertainment to attach to the seat. In my case, the aquarium feature bought me another month of peaceful bathing.

Once your little angel can sit up on their own, they're going to want to move. This is when you have to have some sort of containment device in your bathroom. A jumperoo would work if you don't have a barfer (I did.) We went with the exersaucer, which lasted until he learned to walk around a year. So, there you have it! One year of bathing privileges! From there, it becomes increasingly tricky.

After securing the cabinet doors with magnet locks, the door and door to the toilet with doorknob locks, and the closet door with a "don't close it" piece of styrofoam, I let Piglet run loose while I bathed. This resulted in a massive mess each day after my shower, but at least I was clean. I dealt with the mania until Little Piggie was born, reflecting on how easy newborns were and I never knew it.

I really didn't know how much time I had. Then? I got another one. Time ceased to exist. My time, anyway. Piglet could now turn on scalding hot water, climb onto counters, open doorknobs with locks, drink toilet water and leave the room at will. Little Piggie doesn't stand a chance in the bouncy chair, as Piglet loves to "help" his little brother with the bouncing. He also likes to let Little Piggie "hold" him [read: Piglet sits on LP in the bouncy chair]. So, I must move on.

Enter the current stage of bathing.....wait. At this point, you must declare your solemn promise not to call CPS or anything of the like. I'll wait.

Very good. There are only three choices in my world for bathing at this point.

1. Don't bathe.

2. Get up at 6:45am, hoping no one else wakes up then and bathe. 50% of the time, one of them wakes up while I'm in the shower, then wakes the other up screaming for me. Not a reliable option.

3. That brings us to my choice: letting Piglet take a shower.

I cannot describe the happiness this brings the entire house. We wait until LP is napping, the we head to the shower. It may seem odd to have a 2 year old scampering around your feet while you bathe, but you must remember that at this point, I'm only in there for about 4 minutes anyway. Jump in, wash, condition, shave pits, OUT! Leave Piglet in there, naked as a jaybird and happy as a lark. Give him two cups and a squeegee and he'll stay in there as long as you let him. Today I taught him to draw in the steam, so he should be good for some extra time now.

We may be personally causing the remainder of the drought in this area, but? I am clean and this makes me happy. This concludes this episode of Way Too Much Information About Pigs.