It seems like the days that I'm the most stressed are the ones the kids choose to pick on me, and I think... am I scared because I'm running away from the chasing bear or am I fleeing the chasing bear because I'm scared? Psychology 101 eludes me and all I can think is "bath time with toddlers is a bitch."
The boys LOVE bath time. No, really. They LOVE it. If I want to distract them from anything, I've just got to mention the word "bath" and we're set. Of course, I don't particularly enjoy trying to fend off the partially clothed nearly-2 year-old when the bath isn't exactly ready. Ronan tends to have a little more patience (as much as a nearly-4 year-old can) and chooses to wait until I've cooled the water to more of a Bugs Bunny stew temperature (picture him in the cauldron with the carrots and potatoes floating around going, "Ooh, ooh! Ahh").
So, there I was... trying to distract myself with my newest way to avoid housework, crocheting (thank you, Karen), and I hear the following dialogue from Ronan:
"Hey, butthead. Hey, don't call me that, I'm Spider Man. No, you're Peter Parker!"
Well, I wasn't as shocked by the "butthead" comment as I was by the fact that he knew that Peter Parker was Spider Man. Really? I looked over and Ronan is talking to the Spider Man bubble wand that Santa so graciously left for him. Ripley though, is trying furiously to fit his Disney Cars bubble wand onto his wenis. (Dear God, make me a bird...) I kept thinking about that old joke where you ask someone, "Can you poke your head through this hole?"
As I was beginning to recover from terrifying flash forwards to teenage boyhood and bathroom discoveries I have no desire to be party to (I want to be a zebra finch today - they're pretty), Daddy comes home and bath time is nearly forgotten. I have to wrestle Ripley back into the tub in order to actually get him cleaned up, since soaking in a tub of your own urine-infused water doesn't necessarily do the trick. Ronan doesn't mind though, because even when I remind him that Ripley has probably peed in the water, he (Ronan) continues to suck on his washcloth. Retch.
Sure, none of this seems so traumatic. And as bath times go, it wasn't really all that bad until Jame swung Jilli's buddy in the air, spinning her feet into Jilli's waiting 2 front teeth. Sure, they were already a little loose... And then there's screaming, crying, a bloody mouth and a bathroom with entirely too much acoustics. But that's a totally different story.
