The Latest

A few days ago I was home alone with Miette, and I needed to take a shower. I had to be dressed and ready to leave before her next nap, so I tried to creatively weigh my options. One approach would be to leave her playing unsupervised – I wasn’t really comfortable with that, though. I could have left the bathroom door open, but Tim and Sara would be coming home sometime soon, so I nixed that idea, too. The best idea seemed to be letting her play on the bathroom floor where I could sort of keep an eye on her. I blocked the toilet plunger and moved the garbage can (her favorite attraction) out of reach, and supplied her with a few toys. The first minute of the shower was successful – I got wet. Then she started trying to open the shower doors. They are a little flimsy – made out of plastic and held closed only by a magnet.

I resorted to holding the doors with one hand and shampooing with my other hand. Her next tactic was to drop all of her toys into the tub through the little opening under the doors, then wave her arms around in the shower spray. She was also starting to shriek, so I figured I needed to try something new. Since she was already wet, I stripped off her pjs and diaper, plopped her on the floor of the tub with me, and gave her a few bath toys.

Staying seated was apparently not an option, and she immediately popped up, attempting to climb me like a tree. Fearing a concussion for her and awkward ER visit for me, I paused to repeatedly order her to sit down. When that failed miserably, I decided to just hold her. This allowed me to semi-successfully rinse the remaining shampoo out of my hair while she grabbed at my wet strands in sheer delight, and did her best to hoist herself up my shoulders and climb on top of my head, occasionally shoving her fingers up my nostrils for good measure.

Next time I guess I’ll leave her in the living room unsupervised.