My kids love the water.  Which is good. We live right by it, spend the summer surrounded by it and in it…it’s a good thing.  But, my younger daughter, Lo, takes it to a new level.

Kids wriggle around a lot when they’re in the tub.  It’s almost impossible not to get water and/or soap in their eyes.  Sit still to rinse?  Right, Mom.  Not going to happen.

You would think that logically if they do not want water in their eyes they’d sit still at some point, right?  Works on my oldest daughter.  Tub water in her eyes is like that kid’s kryptonite.  The more she tries to wriggle away…the more water lands on her face.

So, one night, my littlest one, Lo, was a wiggle disaster in the tub.  Back and forth in the tub.  Jumping up and down, then falling only to send herself into a giggle attack.  And then repeat it.  How on earth do you clean a kid like that?  So I doused her with the little bucket of water we use to rinse.  I mean good, too.  Dumped the whole thing over her head.  My thought process being that she wouldn’t like the face full of water and in return sit still for the rest of the scrub.

After the last of the water ran down her face, she looked up at me, eyelashes bunched together with water…mouth wide open in shock…and said…

“AGAIN!!!! AGAIN, MOMMY!!!! AGAIN!!!!”

Once again, I filled up the bucket and dumped it over her head, curious to see if she was calling my bluff here or really liked this game.

This time, with arms flailing, “READY…..SET-GO!!”

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQ-UJ3sg-8I&w=560&h=315]

You’ve got to be kidding me.  What I thought was a sure way to get her to do what I wanted her to do turned into a fun little game for her.  However, from that night on, as long as I could get the soap on her, rinsing became pretty easy…and fun!  (Not to her older sister, who curls up at the opposite end of the tub, constantly reminding me not to do that to her….)

Life with kids.  Just when I think I’ve got ’em…they’ve got me.  There are so many things that I wish I could just blast away with a bucket of water and a cascade of ensuing giggles.  (In particular, this injury that’s nagged me every minute of every day since September.)  Some things can’t be.  But I just dump the water over Lo’s head… and her laugh offers more relief than any doctor has been able to.  Good think she didn’t just sit still to rinse.

Happy splashing…

Megs