Girls night out - Revenge

Well its time for "Dad" to add a little drama to the Blog. Thursday night was girl's night out, and Jen needed to leave at 6:15 to go to an event. Thoughtful and well-planned out husband that I am I arrived at 6:14 to take charge of the kids as Jen ran out the door. The rest of my instructions were passed by cell-phone as I had no idea who had eaten at what time and who needed medicine for the night.

It was "Bath Night", and what I didn't know was how detailed the plot to "get back at Dad" had become. I imagine if I had arrived at 6:13 I would have heard Jen completing her last minute pep-talk to the girls: "Okay girls, remember, your Dad doesn't get nearly enough vomit or "poo" (I'll keep this in Kate's terms)at work so you two need to help him out with that." I envision a little high-five just as Dad is pulling into the driveway.

We finish Kate's dinner, clean up and head for the tub with Claire pretending to sleep peacefully on her chair. Naked toddler goes into the tub and instantly the infant goes into blood-curdling mode - on the other side of the house. I sprint to the kitchen trying to calculate how fast a toddler can drown herself and remembering fondly Kate's headfirst trip into the 45 degree pool a few months earlier. The bathroom isn't big enough for me and Kate and the bouncy-chair, so the newly quiet and "pacified" Claire is now sleeping right around the corner.

The bath continues, with a little soap and some playing by Kate and Claire shattering the peace occasionally after dropping her "binky". (Every time Claire starts crying, Kate dutifully looks up at me and exclaims "binky!"--knowing that will fix everything) Two or Three trips around the corner to tend Claire have me thinking about all of the news stories I'd seen with shattered parents telling a random news crew "I only left her alone for a minute!". Kate is happy-as-a-clam, but I decide this isn't working out so well and relocate Claire into the bathroom doorway so I can keep track of both kids at once.

Now, understand that Kate LOVES her bath time. Usually bath night never lasts long enough, and often ends with Daddy saying "Okay we're done, stand up" while trying to wash the soap off the toddler who only wants to keep sitting back down in the tub. Tonight, as I "plug" a pacifier in the infant for the 30th time to stop the crying I glance in the tub and Kate is sitting their with a weird look on her face. "What's wrong Kate?" I ask while making attempt 31 with the pacifier, and then I notice a lot more than toys floating around Kate in the tub. Kate notices too... and promptly stands up, hands waving in the air and exclaiming "Done...Done...Done!".

As if on cue, (part of the pre-arranged plan) Claire spits out the pacifier and joins in. Did I mention Claire's lovely way of regurgitating every time she gets upset? Now Dad is dealing with one crying infant and one toddler trying to crawl out of a shit-bath while dodging yellow-ish green floaters. Somehow I manged to get kid #1 rinsed off and swabbed with baby-wipes while holding screaming kid #2 over my left shoulder.

Kate's nightly tooth-brushing went quick, with the rising stench of the bathtub making life in the bathroom unbearable. A fast "Dora the Explorer" story later and Claire and I showed up back in the bathroom armed with rubber gloves and everything in the house labeled "bleach" or "disinfectant". The cleaning was a story of its own and I'll just say I learned more than I cared to about what Kate had for breakfast and lunch that day, and we ran out of Jack Daniels that night.

I called Jen at the Ladies Night out in the middle of all this, and I only remember laughter...