Showering with an almost two year old...

When Avery was a baby, we would give her a bath in her own little tub over the sink. Once she got old enough, and big enough, we decided to let her start taking baths in our soaker tub. At this point I was late in my pregnancy with Lenley and my bump was massive. It was a two team person to give her a bath. And it was fun watching her play with all her toys and splash in the water.

Then Lenley was born. We had an extra body to wash, lotion, and cloth every night before we could get in the bed. Baths started at 7:30 and ended sometime after 9, because I had to shower too. Ever since Avery could walk, she would come running in our bathroom and watch me shower through our glass door. She'd run back and forth out of the room playing with me, and it was cute.

One night Terry mentioned to Avery jokingly (or at least I think he was joking) that she should just shower with mommy. He said, "would you like to go shower with mommy?" And she said, YES! There is no way she would actually go through with it, right? WRONG... she hopped right in! Ummm, okay, it's all fun and games until it becomes a reality...

Showering with an almost two year old goes something like this...

• turn the shower on to let the water warm up
• undress yourself, undress baby doll, and then undress toddler (never undress the toddler first, because "clean up on isle four" will be needed)
• hand toddler her wash rag and make sure naked baby doll is in her hand
• you get in first to make sure the water temp is just right, then enters toddler with her hands full
• get toddler, naked baby doll and all their accessories in order on the bench so playtime can commence
• grab shampoo bottle and lather your hair while repeatedly saying, "just a minute"
• grab McDonalds happy meal bucket from Halloween and fill it with water because she's been hitting you with it asking for "waaaaa" since you put shampoo in your hands
• grab razor to shave under your arms, and laugh sarcastically because toddler has just dumped all that water on top of her head and you know you'll have to refill it before you can shave under the next arm
• refill bucket for the third time
• stop and show toddler the top off the shaving cream can scoop out water (yep, that will keep her busy for awhile)
• squirt out some conditioner and rub all over your hair only to pull your hands out to wash them off and realize you're still loosing all that extra pregnancy hair (seriously, I could have made two wigs by now)
• grab the shaving cream and rub all over the right leg, reach for the razor and stop because toddler wants "waaaaa" in the little top off the shaving cream from the shower head
• fill the top with water and hand to toddler and she dumps it into the bucket, turns and wants you to REfill it
• get a few passes with the razor and realize you're gonna be in there all night if she keeps asking for more water
• squirt her foaming body wash on the tile in the shower and tell her to make hand prints
• quickly finish shaving both legs hoping and praying for no nicks
• grab toddlers shampoo and lather all over her head
• grab toddlers body wash and loofa and scrub her down
• grab your loofa and apply the good smelling stuff in hopes that the husband might notice, and hear a shrill from your toddler who now has shampoo in her eyes
• put her on your hip while consoling her and get all the shampoo and body wash off (all while telling her if she would have let you wash it off right after you applied it, it wouldn't have gotten in her eyes... but at the time she was saying "NO")
• grab your loofa again and scrub away the spit up and stickiness of the day, then rinse the smell good off
• grab toddler and turn the shower off
• open shower door and realize you never rinsed the conditioner our of your hair
• turn the shower back on and tell her to wait just a minute while you finish
• turn the shower back off and wrap her in her hooded towel
• open the bathroom door and tell her to go find her daddy
• find yourself a towel and dry off

45 minutes in the shower, and you wonder if you're saving any time by showering together...