Bathtime Parenting Fail

Tonight I was on my own with the kiddos for our nighttime routine.  And, as luck would have it, it was bath night.  I have handled it myself with both kids on numerous occasions, but tonight ended up being such an awesome fail that I thought I'd share it with you.

I actually started out the evening feeling pretty good.  We'd left my parents' house at a decent hour and were on schedule for once.  After getting the milk for bedtime, I herded the kids upstairs along with all their blankies, dollie, sleep sheep, and bears, two glasses of milk, two toothbrushes, and a ginormous box of overnight diapers for Mollie.  While the kids ran around and burned off the last of their energy, I emptied the Diaper Genies and got their rooms appropriately dusky for nighttime soothing.

Mollie accompanied me to the bathroom, and we started running the water for the bath.  Once she was down to her diaper, she and I went to look for Baylor.  I wrangled him into the bathroom, got him stripped down, took off Mollie's diaper, and got both kids into the tub without any fight whatsoever.  Of course, Baylor then began to pee into the bathwater, but he does that almost every bath so it didn't really phase me.

We did the usual washing of the hair and bodies, rinsing, and joking around (I always pretend to have to rinse under Baylor's chin - he finds it quite funny), then we talked a little bit.  All of a sudden I noticed Baylor looking a little ... weird.  And leaning.

Yeah, he was dropping a deuce in the tub.  I asked him if that was, in fact, what he was doing and he confirmed it.  So, quickly as I could, I snatched him out of the tub and started moving toward the toilet.  Unfortunately, he had already left a little surprise in the tub ... with Mollie still sitting there.

*Ugh!*

But, first things first ... he had to finish up.  I actually got him to poop on the potty and didn't drop him in there; you would not believe how slippery that kid is when he's wet!  While he was going, I kept peeking around the little half wall to make sure Mollie was alright.  On one of my peeks, however, I saw her drop something out of the tub.

Yeah, she had picked up his turd and tossed it out of the tub onto the bathmat.  It wasn't really a surprise; my girl loves to clean up.  But it was so very gross.  Once Baylor was done, I tried to wipe him but he was so wet from his bath that the toilet paper basically disintegrated on contact.  I'll spare you the details, but it took a lot of effort to get that little tush clean.  Meanwhile, there was still a deuce on the floor and a cute little girl sitting in what was essentially dirty,soapy toilet water.

(You can see how this was a fail now, right?)

After plopping the offending turd into the toilet, I told Baylor he could flush it; that is actually his favorite part of the whole bathroom experience.  Unfortunately, he was so wet from his bath that he couldn't brace himself enough to flush the toilet; he just slid around and almost whacked his head on the toilet seat.  I quickly gave up on that and set him on the towel I laid out for him; then I flushed the toilet myself.  It was finally Mollie's turn to get out of the tub, and she seemed pretty excited to do so.  Wonder why.

As my two adorable children were sitting there on their towels, I glanced at Mollie and noticed she shivered a bit.  But she wasn't cold.  And then she smiled.

Yeah, she peed on her towel.

Guess who else did.  Yup, if you guessed Baylor, you'd be correct.

So now I am doing a load of filthy, pee-and poo-soaked laundry and thanking my lucky stars that it wasn't worse; a couple minutes in either direction and Baylor could have crapped on the carpet.  We had a talk about what we're supposed to do when you have to poop, so hopefully that won't happen again.  And I'm grateful that I kept my cool and was able to see the humor in the situation.

And that, my dear friends, is all that kept the whole night from descending into an epic fail.

Good night, and may your baths be poo-free!