The Monster likes baths.
Rather, the Monster likes to play in the bath. Unfortunately, when we’re on a tight schedule before school, bath time’s not really an option, so the Monster gets stuck with a shower… which he hates.
So when we’ve gone long enough without getting him cleaned up, and there’s not enough time, that’s usually when I have to haul him into the shower and wash him before I take my own shower. That entails a lot of fighting and squealing, since the shower is so full of Do Not Want for him.
And I’ve gotten used to that. He’s not quite up yet to the concept of washing himself – he certainly knows what to do after this long, but hasn’t shown an inclination to do it on his own, much less the mechanics of making sure his hair’s fully washed or making sure his ears are clean… but that’s just a fact of life, and it’s one that we deal with.
The fact that he doesn’t like showers is really… surprising to me. I mean, we’re talking the kid who runs to get under the huge bucket at Count’s Splash House at Sesame Place, not liking when it’s a mere fraction of the water coming down on his head. He tolerates my using a 44 oz cup to dump water on him when I have to rinse his hair, and he’s only recently been reluctantly letting me angle the shower head to rinse his body off. To me, there’s not a heck of a lot of difference, save that the shower’s a small space compared to the beach at Sesame Place.
This morning was, obviously, one of those shower mornings. I geared up for the fight, and we got going early so that we could have time to not be rushing around… and he cooperated (relatively, for him). He made it clear that he wasn’t in the mood for a shower, but as always, he let himself be led in once he was undressed, and retreated as far as he could from the shower head. And, as always, I pointed out that it just goes faster if he’d come over where I can douse his hair with the shower itself, as well as the fact that it lets me rinse his hair faster.
And… shock of shocks, he actually let me guide him right under the spray to do what needed to be done.
It’s not to say that he was perfectly happy about it, or that he didn’t run out of the shower the moment he was finished, but I have to admit that I like that he’s pushing his boundaries and letting us get him to do “new” things.