Listening to: 2 very chatty daughters of mine
Mood: In a funk – and not in a cool funky way
My husband has returned from the great, far away land of the
US. Sanity, for the most part has returned to our house. It is summer vacation
for us (India gives March end – June here, because that’s summer), so sanity is
really relative. As you may have imagined, India is bloody hot in the summer.
We live in Bangalore, which is relatively temperate compared with the rest of
this land. It is still very hot.
I’ve always had a rather morbid curiosity about kids that
don’t want to take showers. I’ve read about different people’s children and
just wondered why that would be. I used to LOVE taking showers and baths. I
still do, but dread them because my children will be alone for more than 5
minutes. Now before you accuse me of being a helicopter mom, this has nothing to
do with their safety. I’m afraid for my house’s safety. No supervision = you
really want your house burned down, don’t you? There is no joy in rushing
through a shower so that your kids will not try to blow up the microwave by
sticking a whole roll of tin foil in the microwave just to see what happens; even
though you’ve warned them about not using the microwave on pain of being beaten
with a stick, but also about metal and microwaves not mixing. Let me tell you, my showers are all of 8.2
seconds if anyone under the age of 30 is awake in our house.
Let me explain something about showers in India. We have
small water heaters for each bathroom that warm up exactly enough water for ½ a
shower. If you want more, you must sit wet and soapy while you wait for the
water heater to refill. We do have functional shower heads, but no bathtubs.
India has a water shortage so bathtubs are out of the question. The smarter
thing to do is take a bucket shower. It takes a little getting used to, but it’s
actually quite pleasant. If you can learn to take a shower with only 1 bucket
of water, you don’t have to worry about running out of hot water. This doesn’t
matter much in the summer because you have to be bat snot crazy to want a hot
shower in the summer. It does however, make a difference in winter. You try
taking a cold shower when it’s only 70 degrees out. It’s not all that fun. I do
occasionally use the shower to make sure my hair is rinsed out well, something that usually isn’t all
that great with a bucket, but with a record of 5 minutes with hot water, I
certainly don’t linger. By the end of a hot sweaty day in India, I crave a
shower at the end of the day; even if it’s just 5 minutes with a bucket of
cold-lukewarm water.
However, this post is not about my showers. This post is
about 2 little stinky girls who don’t like to take showers. What gives? It took them both (especially my
youngest) a while to get used to bucket showers. They just didn’t like not
having a bathtub to wallow in. They don’t mind bucket showers now, but they
have some mysterious problem about not wanting to clean themselves at all. Now,
they fight vehemently about whether they will take showers (oh you will little
piggies, you definitely will) and then who has to go first. I keep a loose
tally about who’s turn it is to go first, but if all else fails, I’m the mom so
I just decide and throw one in there. How does a shower not seem like a great
idea after you’ve been running around all day and it’s as hot as balls outside?
Anyone have a good story about kids who don’t like to be
clean?
Becky.
P.S. I love it when people follow my blog. No,
this is not a subtle hint. Seriously. The follow button on the right – go find
it.
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