Squeaky clean

Back in November or so, when Mallory's eczema came back for another winter, we drastically reduced the number of baths she takes. As in, we went from bathing her every night of the week to maybe only doing it once every 5-7 days. Since, in a true exercise in efficiency, we bathe Liam and Mallory together - Liam's baths have been severely curtailed, too. (And really, when it's not summer and he is not running around outside getting all sweaty and muddy - it hardly matters.)

The problem now is that they have discovered the joy of having that glorious extra time each night before bed to play. Rather than heading upstairs at 7 p.m. to start the bath water running, we sometimes aren't heading up until almost 8 p.m. And when there does happen to be a bath on the schedule, much complaining and shrieks of protest ensue.

A while ago I was so sick of the protests that I caved in and offered to let Liam and Mallory have a shower, in our bathroom, with me. Liam went through a showering phase when he was roughly the age that Mallory is now, and quite enjoyed it, so I figured the novelty would win me a few argument-free nights.

That's an understatement. For whatever reason, the shower idea has been a wild success. Liam has responded to it positively, which is great, but Mallory has been really over the top. In fact, there were a few mornings over our Christmas break, when we had the luxury of being lazy and puttering around rather than frantically racing to get out the door each morning, and I would still be in my pajamas at 11 a.m. (or sometimes later - eek!) I would eventually announce that I was going to go upstairs to have a shower, and suddenly notice Mallory was missing. It never failed on these occasions that I would find her upstairs, standing fully clothed in the shower stall and just waiting for me to come turn on the water. And after I booted her out and turned the water on and climbed in myself, I sometimes had to pry her little fingers off the door and shoo her away - she would keep trying to get in with me.

These days, the kids are having a hard time adjusting to going to bed a bit earlier so they are prepared for the crack-of-dawn wakeup call. The one saving grace in it all is that Mallory is usually still sleeping while Chad and I are in the shower, so there are no arguments about who gets to come in with us during the mad morning rush.