No tears in the bath!
When I told Carson tonight that he was going to take a bath after Betsy was done with hers, he seemed ok. But after getting Betsy dressed in her pajamas Carson ran into the other room and demanded to “stay right here!”. I was again determined not to lose it, so before even going in to the bathroom I sat him in my lap and talked to him about the bath, trying to figure out yet again why he gets so upset about it. Then I asked him if he’d rather take a bath in the upstairs tub. Through tears he said “ok, mommy” and headed up the stairs. Things started out fine. With the water still running I got him in the tub and poured the foam letters in with him. Betsy was in there with us and at one point she was reaching over into the tub and I reached over to keep her from going in. At that moment Carson pulled the stopper (not sure what the correct term is) on the faucet that makes the shower come on. I pushed it back down but not before some water made it out of the shower head and got Carson right in the face. He starts to cry and I know we’re done with bath time. But to my surprise he actually calmed down and we ended up having a terrific time! It was nice to have a relatively drama free evening.
This experience with Carson has reminded me of how unpredictable kids are, how you’ve never “got it” as a parent, and how creative parenting requires you to be. More than one mom has said to me, “Once you’re comfortable with what your kids are doing, they change.” And it does seem to be true. Maybe not with everything, but with sleep when they’re really little, and then with stages of mobility, and food preferences. Kids have a way of keeping you on your toes, and keeping your mind working as you have to think of new ways of getting (and sometimes tricking) them to do what they should. Which is great, because otherwise my mind would go to mush from under use. But somehow it still feels like mush a lot of the time. Maybe I should start doing crossword puzzles again. I have to stay sharp if I’m going to outsmart Carson once he starts to catch on to my schemes.
