Today was a momentous day. A day to be celebrated, during which angels’ horns trumpeted, every chocolate manufacturer decided to make a vegan, slave-free product, and women having trouble conceiving got knocked up. Today is a day that will go down as infamous.
To me.
Today, Zoë took her first shower.
There’s been nothing but baths – most of them requiring (expensive, perfume-free, excessively frothy) bubbles. Baths timed just right, so as to not equate to her getting immediately dirty or sweaty again, or hyper (no bedtime baths in this apartment, that’s sleeping suicide). Three and a half years of the perfect bath – not too warm, not too cold; not too shallow, not deep at all; with 26 pieces of flair bath toys – towards the end of which I’d have to go through the same arguments and repetitive dialogue and soap in the eyes.
Baths suck balls.
Especially when you factor in my OCD, and the necessity of cleaning the tub before and afterwards.
Today, I announced that Zoë would be taking a shower before preschool and she was having no fucking part of it. Until I suggested that it could be like playing in the rain.
Turns out weather’s all it takes.
She was surprised when I started getting naked, too. There was no way I was letting her go it alone, with her drunken hand-to-eye coordination and tendency to fall off of her feet for no reason.
Some background: I’ve gotten real lazy lately with my own, uh, grooming. If you’d asked me a month ago if the drapes matched the carpet, I’d say, wittily, “I’ve got hardwoods installed.” Today, the response would be something closer to, “The area rug matches the valance, that’s for damn sure.”
But she didn’t know that, because the last time I took a bath with her was at least six months ago, and she’s used to the laminate.
So, I got in the tub first – safety’s important – and made sure the water was fine, and then gave her the go-ahead to climb in, too. Then she fell on the floor of the tub, giggling, pointing and laughing, saying, “Mama, you look like a man. I can’t see no vagina!”
