shower safety

Alice is a bath kind of gal. Kids and baths are a time-honored combination that The Family, for the most part, respects and observes. Furthermore, Alice has a boatload of bath toys and loves to splash around in our tiny little clawfoot tub for absurd amounts of time. In spite of this, now and then I let Alice take showers. By herself. And it is amazing. She hops in dry and gets out 20 minutes later soaking wet while I do whatever I feel like.

“Does she wash?” you ask.

Do I care?

Being the responsible mama I am, I always check in on her a few dozen times while she is screwing around showering. I find her doing all sorts of things: squeegeeing the walls, throwing a bar of soap around, playing with the pouf-sponge-thing, coloring with her shower crayons… and occasionally, washing. Last night, though, I walked in to find her laying on the floor. This doesn’t sound too odd until I tell you we have one of those itty-bitty stand-up showers. Yes, this is different from a standard stand-up shower: it fits into a corner and has one side cropped out.

Perhaps this is why Alice calls our bathrooms “the mini-rooms.”

When I found her laying down, I inquired about her antics and was informed she was laying there so she could wash her belly.

Ummm, okay.

So I went back to putting away the laundry and chatting on the phone. After folding a few sweaters, I popped my head back into the mini-room. This time, Alice told me, “I smell a fire,* so I need to stop (put up her hands in freeze-frame style), drop (sat down on the shower floor), and roll (miraculously managed to roll her wee body on the itty-bitty floor of that tiny shower in our mini-room).”

That’s right, folks. Shower safety. Now we need a mascot.

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* After some pondering, I determined that by “smell a fire,” Alice really meant “saw some steam.” Close enough.