Day 266 - Rub-A-Dub-DONE!

Bath nights are usually done in the kitchen. We place the baby tub between the sink, fill it up with warm water, then scrub the kids down. Washing in the kitchen is particularly great because after the kids are done bathing, we use that same water to wash our dishes. And whatever is left we pour into our Brita water pitcher.

Lately, the kids learned to splash around in the tub getting us soaked in the process. Sometimes so wet that Lisa ends up looking like she just finished a wet t-shirt contest exposing all three of her nipples (...long story, don't ask...).

Enough was enough last Friday, and Lisa decided to move the baby tub into the big tub in the bathroom. I suppose it was about time and a good idea for two reasons: 1) Get the kids used to the bathroom and the big tub. 2) Our filtered water will stop tasting like Johnson & Johnson baby wash and baby urine.

Andrew was up first. Lisa filled the baby tub up with warm water, so Andrew was good to go. When Andrew entered the tub within the tub, he seemed confused because he knew this was not the usual place he washes. His little head was craning around looking at the new surroundings. Look at the shampoo bottles! Look at the soap! Look at all of the black, curly hairs! After Lisa soaped Andrew up, she turned on the faucet to get some clean water to rinse him off.

Bad idea.

The noise from the faucet freaked Andrew out. He started to bawl and in general just be pissed off. Lisa quickly rinsed Andrew off and got him out of the tub as soon as possible.

As for Emma when it was time for her to rinse off in the tub, the noise from the faucet startled her, but didn't throw a hissy fit like little wimpy sensitive over-analyzing baby (FYI my nickname in high school).

The next day, it was my turn to give Andrew a bath. Lisa already filled the tub with water, so all I had to was drop Andrew in there like a lobster. As I put Andrew's feet in the tub, he started to cry. I immediately pulled him out thinking the water might be too hot. It wasn't. This time, I put Andrew all the way into the tub and he cried again. Really loud. Really really loud.

He started to grab at my t-shirt trying to pull himself out of the tub. He was freaking out! When I decided to just take him out of the tub, Andrew was crying and literally shaking. The last time I saw someone shake like that was when I attended a diabetes conference which was unfortunately sharing the ballroom with the annual See's Candy board meeting.

When Emma took a bath after Andrew's freak out, I walked into the bathroom to show him how happy Emma was in the tub. Initially Andrew cried when I took a step towards the tub, but after awhile calmed down. The rest of the night he was his happy-go-lucky self squiggling on the floor and taking toys away from Emma.

It was quite sad to see Andrew traumatized by the whole running water incident, but at the same time it was kinda neat. Neat in the sense that you see your kid remembering things for the first time and associating certain sounds and experiences with emotions. I'm sure overtime Andrew will get over this tub episode and will probably freak out over something else in the future. But for now, we'll deal with these situations one day at a time, and possibly start a little savings account for any future therapy sessions.