Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Surprise in the Bath

So after a lovely afternoon watching Tabatha throw a wet and saliva impregnated ball for the dog and twenty minutes of her cuddling up in my arms (aahhh!) outside the kitchen looking up at the trees and bushes and her waving every time an ash tree or a chestnut waved at her (which ash trees do all day so potentially it could have a long afternoon) and after her eating half a yogurt in the normal fashion and the other half by sticking her prehensile tongue directly in the tub and then after helping me to plant some flowers wiping her grubby yogurt and earth covered hands all over her face and then me sweeping the kitchen floor and her taking a handful of the sweepings and sticking it in her mouth… a bath was called for.

Having been a pedophobe for all of my life I know that parents obsessively talking about babies and collaterals causes most people including myself to hit the boredom and yawn buttons really hard and I am not going to turn this into a ‘me and my baby’ blog. But some things are worth recounting. So normally we have three types of baby bath: in the sink, shower in the bath, bath in the bath. Laura does the first two usually and I do the last. My selflessness knows no bounds.

Now, there are two things in the civilized world that must not be tampered with: breakfast and baths. Brekker I seem to have managed to preserve in tact, baths perhaps a little less so. Not that baths were ever for enjoyment of course. Lying down in the same position each day simply enables one to keep track of ones abdominal expansion. If one can still see ones men’s bits one has not reached that stage of fatness which requires one to give up biscuits and if ones men’s bits are still floating, they are still alive which is of course a daily cause for rejoicing. It’s a sort of daily and monotonous health check, it has to be done and the book at bath time and the occasional accompanying G&T are purely coincidental. Thus, given the enormous health benefits offered by a daily bath I have struggled to maintain this ideally solitary habit but, often, very often … I get invaded.

I will be in the bath at last after a hard day’s graft, lying back in the hot water, glasses on nose, book in paw, rubber duck floating aimlessly about, door closed in an atmosphere of studious relaxation and peace - until the family arrives. Then there is suddenly a double presence in the room, the door is left open, cold air is allowed in, the noise levels rise, perceived movement in the room increases dramatically and there is a flurry and flinging of small clothes and some impatient shaking and stamping of little feet and wailing and smiling and cries of Ha! and, without warming, a nude baby suddenly get lowered onto my chest. Then the splashing starts. And the toys, and the attempts at suicide by drowning and this time, today, a little something extra.

Now I don’t know if you all know what follows after a toddler, squats down, furrows brow and makes funny uh!Uuuh noises. But it tinges the bath water with brown. I won’t go into mechanics of the thing but lets say an initially firm turd in hot water very rapidly disintegrates and despite Laura’s best attempts at fishing and sieving using the slip mat we were forced to pull the plug. I have never had this experience before and I don’t wish to have it again though I was actually quite surprised at just how much it didn’t worry me in fact the event taught me two interesting lessons: 1) – the universe is frighteningly mutable; events beyond our control are often just around the corner. 2) - Shit Happens!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

You are lucky to have got til now without that kind of accident lol. A good friend of mine has a net scoop (originally for goldfish) on the side of the bath because it had happened so often. Kids open up a whole new realm of yuck don't they.

Woozle said...

and the thing is they don't tell you BEFORE. Perhaps someone should write a book. You gotta love 'em though!!!
Thanks for comment

Anonymous said...

LMAO!!

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