Tubby Time
7:30 to 7:45pm. Any night. It’s time. Tubby time. For a long time now, I have been in charge of Tubby Time, unless I’m either out of town or working late. It’s time for me and the little booglet to catch up and play. The play goes as follows:

Nemo Bubbles or Not? To bubble or not to bubble. That is the question…

Can I wash your pretty neck? Standard answer, “noooooo,” in such a cute demure way that I laugh everytime as I’m washing that pretty neck. By now, I’ve used the cup to wet her wild hair, and soaped up the wash rag, looking for extremities to knock off quickly, hands otherwise occupied with the myriad floating toys in the tubby. Toes and little feet to scrub. Sooner or later all spots are covered. Which leads to…

Blowing bubbles; Kick, kick kicking; or Whale squirting. Dealer’s choice here. Depends on the little one.

You just never know. Flexibility is the key. Sometimes you go with the flow and wind up laughing over something you hadn’t even expected, and Mommy comes in asking what you two silly billlies are doing. We don’t know; it’s tubby time. We’re splashin’ and laughin’. Daddy’s askin’ questions, scrubbing as he goes, workin’ on the alphabet or planets, drilling his little pupil. The pupil is performing her own hydo experiments, sometimes squirting the teacher with the whale—which seems unfair since I taught her how to fill him up with water, “Squeeze him and hold his tail underwater.” All that just to get a stream of warm bathwater jetted at me.

Citrus and Rosemary. It’s just a shampoo. But when huckster Daddy pitches it as “Citrus and Rosemary,” in a TV announcer’s tone, somehow for the little one, it becomes special, worthy of her long, luxurious hair. We smell it together, “Oh! Smells so good!” Just a little dab for her, and now, show me how big girls tilt their hair back to get it rinsed out. “Oh, so big.”

Boo Boo check.Usually this is brought to your attention. Sometimes it’s hard to find them. Sometimes you follow the boo boos from visibility until they are microscopic. Either way, a kiss makes them better.

Once we're done, Mommy comes in for the second shift, brushing hair, teeth and putting on pajamas. Daddy prepares for the book reading, because after tubby time comes story time.