bathness

Adrienne has always enjoyed her bath, but ever since we have been in Idaho she is taking that up a notch. She is drawn to the bath like a moth to the flame--in an irresistible, incessant, borderline obsessive manner. It shouldn't come as too much of a surprise that she likes the bath so much here because it allows her to be naked (her current favorite state) and she feels 'nice and warm' (as she likes to describe it). In theory, I am a supporter of this new-found love: She uses her imagination, she has individual play, she has totally mastered the bath puzzles in just a few days, and on top of all that, she gets CLEAN. In reality, however, there is only so much time that you can spend in the bathroom before you get bored or uncomfortable or both. Because these are not your average 20 minute baths we are taking about. These are 60 minutes....90 minutes....120 minutes.... probably longer if you would let her. The other day I was watching her in the bath and my dad had to relieve me for a lunch break. I think that was the slowest I have ever eaten a turkey sandwich. Which is really at the root of the problem with this hobby--she has to be attended at all times. Even if I sneak out for a few minutes to start the laundry (or see whats happening on the TV, more likely), I am terrified that she is going to drown in the moments I am away. She loves the bath so much that we have taken to spelling the word out instead of using it openly--on par with C-A-N-D-Y. The fear is that mentioning 'bath' will pique her ears and doom you to an evening perched on the side of the tub. We joke about whose turn it is to bathe Adrienne at night yet when the time comes everyone seems awfully busy with other things. I think soon we are going to start drawing straws and the one with the shortest gets stuck with the bath chore. On the plus side, with all this idle time in the bathroom, I am getting much better at my iPad scrabble and have started playing with my new zoom lens.     

After about an hour or so of this, I started to try to lure Adrienne out with promises of good things outside the tub. After a few failed attempts, I pulled out the big guns. I offered her a bowl of ice-cream in front of the TV while watching Peppa Pig. She thought about it for a bit, then said, "Um, No Thank-you, Mommy!' See, I tried being nice. This is what happens when you have finally had enough of the bath for the night and literally pull the plug on it.  Oh, the injustice of it all!