Mr. J has been away for the past five days on business.   While it hasn’t been chaos here, there have been some scenes reminiscent of the War of Roses, and I don’t mean the Michael Douglas movie, either.

So, this morning, after yet another night of limited, broken sleep, and after preparing breakfast for Little J, I decided to have a short bath. Mostly, I wanted to shave my legs and at least be presentable for my returning husband. I don’t get to have a bath very often, and while my leg hair wasn’t long enough to braid, there were some concerns about drain blockage after the shaving.

Anyway.

Here is the story of one bath, meant to be a leg-shaving ten minutes of repose.

Little K had been changed and nursed, and I knew that she would happily sit in her bouncy chair/wipstoel next to the bathtub for a good 30 minutes or so. Little J was watching his daily bit of TV, and since he doesn’t get the mind-numbing quantities that he used to, I figured that would hold his attention for awhile.

I undressed and started running the tap. Luscious hot water flowed into the tub. Little K cooed and grabbed at her toys. I poured in some Molton Brown bath gel and savored the gorgeous scent drifting up on the steam. Heaven. I stepped into the bath and sat down into my little portion of temporary paradise.

Then I heard the footsteps on the stairs.

“Mama, what ya doin’?”

“I’m having a bath. Why don’t you watch your video?”

“Little J wants a bath, too.”

“No, Mommy is having a bath now, and Little J has one at night.”

This seemed to satisfy him, but his little head was busy figuring out what other fun he could have while Mommy was in the bath.  I could have tried to get him to leave, but that would have involved shutting and locking the door, and then I couldn’t hear what he was up to. You have to pick your battles, and I decided letting Little J mess around on the fringes of my bath might be the path of least destruction.

So, Little J took off his sweater in preparation for the wet work at hand and gathered his tiger, crocodile and dinosaur.  The tiger and crocodile then engaged in a splashing fight on the edge of the bath while I tried to shut it out and enjoy the bubbles, scent, and sound of water pouring from the tap–a sound I find restful.

Here are the Bath Animals feeding--they need their strength for the bath wars ahead

“Here, Mama, hold Tiger.”

“I don’t want to hold Tiger. Please put him here on the bath.”

“Hold Bruni”, referring to the large apatosaurus.

“No, put him on the bath.”  A minute or two of animals jostling for the best position on the bath edge ensued. Then, Little J spotted the mound of bubbles in the bath.

“Hey, bubbles! Little J wash Mommy’s nee-nees.”

My son nursed until he was 2 years old, and he knows what breasts are for.  He watches his little sister nurse and occasionally wants to pat a “nee-nee” for comfort.  Little J gathered up a handful of bubbles and washed the  top of  the nee-nee. Five times. At that point, I really was clean enough.

“Enough, Little J.  They’re clean.”

“Ok. The animals are swimming.”  Tiger, Bruni, and crocodile went for a swim. Little K gurgled happily. I put my ears under the bath water to hear the sound of the water and shut out the menagerie playing water polo next to me.

I decided to shave my legs, thinking that time might be running out. I got out the ocean-scented shave gel. But all I could smell was poo.

“Little J, have you done a poo?”

“YEEESSSSS. Little J makes crocodile music.” He sang a little ditty in his cloud of poo smell about the crocodile while I lathered up.

One of my legs was bent while I was shaving, and Little J put the crocodile there. I removed it.

“Little J, here’s the crocodile. I’ve put him on the bath.” Little J put the crocodile back on my leg, still singing the “crocodile music”. I put him back on the bath. Little J put him back on my leg.

“Little J, TAKE THE CROCODILE .”

“But crocodile is tired. He wants to sleep on Mommy’s leg.”

“No. Mommy is shaving. Please put the crocodile back.” A whiff of poo smell drifted by, entirely negating the ocean scent on my legs. Little K started fussing.

So much for my ten minutes of peace, quiet, and nice smells. I got out of the bath, dried off, changed the poo, picked up the crying Little K, got dressed and disappeared back into Mothering-Land.