Occasionally I come up with a way to gain twelve seconds of my life back by cutting corners in a time saving exercise that sometimes involves a personal injury like the many times I’ve crunched my hip against the corner of just about every waist high coffee table in the house trying to beat the microwave beep so as not to wake any number of nappers.
Sometimes I am successful and pat my evil genius back for coming up with such an intuitive plan. Others, I’m left deflated mopping urine down a lengthy hardwood floor hallway. Last night was one of those nights.
The girls were skipping on the driveway and our usual bath/storytime window was creeping up but I was as anxious as the rest of the neighbourhood kids to find out how many inches the pin would go in or what letter Ellie’s boyfriend’s name would start with, careful not to flub her jumping and land on pesky “X” again. Xavier would have no chance with an independent young skipper like Ellie.
I couldn’t drag my own kids inside on such a breezy, perfect evening, especially knowing the neighbourhood children likely hadn’t even had an afterschool snack, let alone dinner so to lure my kids into the bath and bed seemed a little unfair, though I do think there is a better chance of getting them to close their eyes if the sun is burning their retinas through the blinds. It sure beats the ominous darkness that lurks after 8pm.
In the interest of saving time, the girls tore off their clothes the second they walked in the door and tossed everything in the laundry room. Brilliant! Why don’t I strip the baby right here too, throw all of the clothes, they can all run down to the bath naked and I will save myself a trip back to the laundry room with a pile of skipping outfits. This would save me that coveted twelve seconds, not to mention close to forty paces I wouldn’t have to retrace moments after the bath’s completion. A solid plan, we should try this every night.
Hanna and Ellie were the first to arrive in the bathroom while the baby tried to keep up but something was impeding her progress. Oh right. She was peeing while chasing her sisters down the hall and then slipped and slid into the wall.
Not only did I lose my twelve seconds, I had to run (in urine of course—is there a cross trainer for that?) to help the baby then clean the floors on my hands and knees before running the bath.
Goodbye twelve bonus seconds. I’ll be using you to construct a “slippery when wet” sign.
