Project Shower

Taking a shower with a newborn and a toddler is a long term project. Just putting it out there so that you know where I’m coming from. Also, so that you can politely ignore the fact that I may be a little ‘ripe’ or overly dry skinned when you come over.

It’s never the right time for a shower, even at 3 am in the morning. During the day, I can’t leave little man with sweet baby. Little man loves his little brother. So much so that he believes he must share everything with the baby. His food, read choke hazard; his toys, read impact; clothes, read smothering risk; the list goes on. So leaving the two unsupervised is a no-no. In his waking hours, little man is always around sweet baby. When little man is off to eat, baby is also feeding. Baby also doesn’t seem to like being left alone. If he’s asleep, he’ll wake up crying should he be left alone for more than 2 minutes. If he’s awake, well the minute I get out of his line of vision, that’s some loud desperate wails.

When one is asleep, the other wants mums total and full attention. When both are awake, there is risk in the exuberant love displayed by the older one.

Take Wednesday for instance. The idea was to shower in the morning after putting baby down for a nap and turning on baby tv for little man. As soon as I got to the bathroom door, little man had silently gotten up the stairs and was trying to ‘gotea’ his baby brother. Who woke up angry and wailing… no problem though. My ripe self will continue mummy-ing (nursing, changing diapers, cooing, burping, dancing etc etc) till they are both asleep. They both nap at around 2. So finally, I clean up little mans mess in the room, eat, take a breath of fresh air and eventually get into the bathroom. As I turn on the shower, baby man is awake and hungry/wet. So I nurse him, burp him, we stare lovingly into each others eyes for a bit then he dozes off. 

this is on a good day

Little man then wakes up and has a gazillion stories as he follows me to everywhere including into the loo… clearly the shower has to wait. Next opportunity is when little man is asleep and baby sweet is bathed and with his daddy. Daddy is too tired to stay awake. As the water hits my skin, baby realizes he is alone and his wails start getting desperate. I have no heart for it. I’ll aim for soap tomorrow.