Splish Splash

Leah and Riley are starting to get a little too big for their infant bathtub, so Kathy has recently been pushing for us to start giving them baths in our bathtub. She got the bright idea that we should put them both in the bathtub at the same time so that they could play together while we give them a bath. This didn’t seem like a very good plan to me. I mean, giving one baby a bath is fairly challenging, because they squirm and splash and slip around. The thought of giving two squirmy, splashy, and slippery babies a bath at the same time in a big ol’ bathtub scared the bejeebers out of me. I had this nightmare scenario in my head where both babies simultaneously slip and they bonk their heads together and then fall face down in the water and I’ve got to reach down and grab these slippery babies out of the water before they both drown. I mean, I have a hard enough time keeping hold of the soap during my morning shower – I certainly can’t be expected to snatch a 20-pound awkwardly-shaped bar of soap with each hand on a moment’s notice, can I?

But Kathy is impressively stubborn about certain things, so in the end she won out. She convinced me it would be fine if we were both there, each washing and keeping an eye on a single baby. So despite being filled with dread, I reluctantly agreed to try this double-bath idea on a trial basis, and this Saturday night was our first trial. It was quite the experience.

Immediately after they touched down in the water for the first time, Leah and Riley started giggling and splashing. And when I say they were giggling, I mean they were giggling non-stop. And when I say giggling non-stop, I mean that they were giggling continuously without even pausing to breathe, except for the occasional mid-laugh croak-y gasping-for-air thing. And when I say they were splashing, I mean they were basically twin Energizer Bunnies, except instead of beating that drum over and over, they were joyfully flapping their arms up and down, triumphantly slapping the water over and over and over and over. The giggling and splashing was occasionally punctuated by these high-pitched, piercing squeals of delight – the kind that sounds like a pack of ten-year-old girls riding a roller coaster while simultaneously watching a Hannah Montana concert.

A couple times, the girls did actually slide and fall awkwardly into the water. We snatched them up quickly and waited expectantly for them to start crying, but in both cases, they just resumed giggling and splashing right where they left off. The giggling and splashing didn’t let up for a good ten minutes. During that time, mommy and daddy intermittently tried to actually wash their babies, with very little success.

So, in the end, the bath was a complete and utter failure under the "getting babies clean" criterion, but a resounding success under the "soaking parents clothes", "splitting parents eardrums" and "making our babies blissfully happy" criteria. And of course, you can probably guess which criterion wins out in that little competition.