How to Bath Monkeys

Bath Time! It usually falls right in between supper and bedtime. At our house we alternate. One night #1 has a bath and the next #2 and #3 will have a bath. When it's #1's turn things are pretty uneventful but the other nights strange things happen.

Usually it begins with a fight over who goes first. Apparently going second means you win. If you ask me the person who goes second loses every time because, when these kids get into the bathtub the first thing they like to do is take a pee. I don't get this at all. Why would anyone want to have a bath in water that is mixed with their own piss? There is no way in hell I'd be getting into a bath if I'd just peed in it, let alone if it was someone else who'd peed. Ewwww! They don't care. I think they like it better with pee. Mmmm nothing beats that pee water. I think I'll take a big mouth full and spit it out like a fountain about thirty times. Yuck!

When the kids have a bath it is like a death sentence to any bar of soap. By the time I get to the shower all that's left is a little piece the size of a postage stamp. I've found new bars torn to shreds after they're done with them. A couple of times the bar was full of holes like it had been shot 5 or 6 times.In the end there are pieces of soap on the floor, in their hair, stuck to their backs and clogging up the drain. You couldn't make a mess like that if you tried.

Next is the shampoo. We all have our own kind. I use anti-dandruff stuff because if I don't it always looks like I just came in from a snowstorm, Jules has her own girly kind and the kids have a kids formula specially designed not to burn their eyes out when they pour it in. The kids haven't got a real handle on the proper amount that is needed to wash their hair. Sometimes they use a drop, sometimes they use half a bottle. Sometimes they just pour it straight into the bath as bubble bath. Sometimes they just like to spray it all over the tub in the middle of the day for no reason. They are pretty easy going about it. When the run out of the kids kind they have no problem wasting Jules's and if they are really hard pressed they can always pour mine down the drain and on the walls.

Who could possibly have a bath without about four dozen toys? They toss in about 6 Barbies, a bunch of plastic horses, parts of a tea set and a wide variety of McDonalds Happy Meal toys, not to mention other non-toy items that manage to find their way into the tub, like say Jules's toothbrush. They don't really play with these toys, they just like to have them in there with them. Why wouldn't you want to have a bunch of pointy plastic stuff under you when you're having a bath?

The bath routine usually takes them at least half an hour each. 2 minutes to wash and 28 minutes to perform body torpedoes, barrel rolls, underwater screams, bubble blowing, water spitting, toy throwing and anything else that will get the water from inside the tub to the floor just outside of the tub. They seem to think bathtub and swimming pool mean the same thing.

Somehow at the end of all of this we end up with a couple of clean kids, but what a price to pay!