I can’t wait for Lucy to start giving herself a bath – I want to put that out in to the Universe (in print) because I know there will come a day when I am old(er) and nostalgic and I’ll turn to someone near me (perhaps a stranger on the bus) and lament about how I miss when my daughter was young and I bathed her. But for the record, it’s hard. First, bath time is 8:00pm, by 8:00pm I have been awake for 14 hours – 10 of those hours were at work or trying to get to work, an hour was spent trying to coerce Lucy in to doing 15 minutes of homework, an hour was spent prepping and/or cleaning up a semi-wholesome meal. Bottom line is by 8:00 I am tired. TIRED.
So I’m tired and Lucy’s hair is about 3 ½ feet long and needs to be washed well, conditioned copiously and brushed out – she doesn’t like water in her face and I need to use professional hair products so when shampoo accidently seeps in to her eyes she reacts as if it were bees and not Paul Mitchell’s moisturizing serum. She doesn’t like to wash herself, she’d much prefer that I act as her handmaiden and do it for her – same with her teeth, so when I insist she does it herself she cries. She is also tired so she can cry really easily and for long, extended periods of time… this goes on seemingly FOREVER.
By the time she is clean and ready to get out she no longer wants to get out she wants to play in her dirty, soapy bathwater and will only remove herself when I promise her a good story time that I’m frankly, a little too tired to read.
She’ll get out of the tub and instantly be FREEZING TO DEATH, she will overdramatically fall into the fetal position on her bedroom floor and not move to help you dry her or dress her but the second she is warm and dressed she will suddenly be FULL of energy and will jump on the bed repeatedly until you have to yell and threaten to take something away from her for her to calm down.
She will want to snuggle while you read which is great except that her hair is still very wet and she will ensure that whatever you are wearing will get very wet too, she will only half pay attention to you as she asks every 15 seconds for you to hand her the milk that she refuses to hold on to but needs placed on her dresser after every swallow.
After the required two chapters of reading she will once again get very weepy and insist that you sleep with her, that she misses you and that she can’t POSSIBLY FALL ASLEEP without you. At which time you will firmly but gently extricate yourself from her bed feeling shitty that you don’t spend enough time with her but also very very ready to go downstairs and drink the glass of wine you poured for yourself that is waiting on the kitchen counter.
You spend 5 minutes reconnecting with your husband before you both fall into a semiconscious stupor and turn on mindless TV until you are too tired to drink anymore wine and you’ll head upstairs and check in on Lucy who is snuggled and cute and quietly snoring or muttering to herself and your heart will melt and you will almost bring yourself to tears because you feel like you are not doing enough, not there enough for her, you will brush her hair out of her face and kiss her on the forehead and try very hard not to think of the 5,673,128,789 ways that life can hurt her and you will want to keep her young and protected forever. You will feel this way for about 24 hours until its bath time again and you are tired and her hair is dirty and all you want to do is relax.
Sticky Jam Hands 