Jetted Tub, Dirty Laundry, Who Needs Water?

When my husband and I bought our house, it came with a jetted tub. I think that’s fairly standard now.



CONFESSION: I never use it.


Never.



I don’t like bathing in my own nasty. I’ve taken care of kids all day, cooked, changed diapers, etc. I would rather have it washed down a drain. Who wants to bathe in all that? {And you think I’m not a germ-o-phobic! Stop, you’re making me blush!}



I dislike bathing. I’m afraid I’m going to see graham cracker crumbs and Desitin/Butt Paste tubes floating in the water with me.

You thought I was joking about the butt paste, huh? Nope, it exists.

And we all know where Butt paste goes…(little kid’s bums, not adults….they have other, other stuff for that.)

Anyway, long story short, my unused gigantic jetted tub could be a shrine to all other jetted tubs—seriously, you could get six adults in there—not comfortably—but you could. {And uh, no. I’ve never tried it.}

A few weeks ago, 4 of the most perfect kids in the Whole Wide WORLD (HAHAHAHAHA) came to me and asked if they could take a bath in it. Yes, it’s so big, my kids can actually swim in it. One daughter practices her backstroke while the other perfects her “dunking” and “sinking” skills.

NOTE: I’m not bragging about how big it is, I’m stating how ridiculous it is to have something that size in a house. I actually want to tear it out (Honestly, I do.) And I want to put in two lazy-boy recliners, a surround system, a computer, a TV, and a fridge. Then my ‘mommy panic room’ would be all set!

So what my children were really asking that day was:

“Can we go swimming in your bathtub?”

“Sure,” I say. But there was a catch. “You have to pick up all the clothes in it, around it, on top of it, and any clothes that trail within 200 yards of the bathtub, and take them to the laundry room.”

“Wahoo!” They scream.

That was that. Or so I thought…

“EW! Mommy! Mommy!” My two oldest girls were in a state of panic and screaming from the bathroom.

Great, I think. I met them halfway down the hall as they come tearing out of my room. I noted their hysterical expressions and then I realized it had to be a huge spider. I got a little clammy.

But then, like any mom, another thought came rapidly into my head because heavens, it could be any number of possibilities. The most insane ones came to mind first. I began to scratch ‘spider’ off the list and turned to the next possibility: My husband slipped and got pulled under all the clothes and was currently drowning.

Knowing him, he’d love a little “CPR action”.

{*elbow jerk, wink wink*}

Thinking ahead of the game, I start for the garage. The man will have to be resussitated by the tire pump.

But the looks on my girl’s faces halted me. “What’s wrong?”

My seven year old (bisquick) burst into tears. “Daddy is really serious! He’s making us clean up your dirty clothes,” she wailed. “It’s disgusting!” *sniff* “I think I’m going to throw up…”

You’d think her underwear would make her want to vomit. I’m so tired of washing those “accidents”, I’m now throwing them away. At least mine are clean—well, free of accidents anyway. (Although, I may not be able to claim that bragging right when I'm 95...life's a vicious cycle, isn't it?! And instead of my underwear, it will be ME who she'll be throwing away!)

“Yeah!” my other daughter chimed in. “I even had to pick up one of your bras!” She shuddered. Her argument; “Your underwear is so big! And you have boobies--I don’t! I don’t like touching your bra!”

I couldn’t stop laughing. In fact, it grew into a wheeze when she exclaimed, “And then I saw one of dad’s shirts with pee on it!”

“Pee?”

“It was yellow around the arms, but dad said it was arm pit juice!” She began to cry. “My hands now smell!”

With a huge sniff, she sobs, “I don’t want to take a bath anymore. I changed my mind.”

“Yeah, me too,” said the other sister.

Pansies. But I understand their disgust. There are days where I want to cry, throw a tantrum, and dry heave too. Many of those circumstances stems from the bathroom and the wonderful surprises left for me to mop, clean, Clorox, detonate, and fumigate.

I didn’t realize in the beginning that by having children, I was signing up to be a janitor. However, I am on a campaign with my children—I don’t want them trotting the earth like feral, incontinent, ‘Poop and Miss’ Cabbage Patch Dolls.

How does a young mother rate her level of success?

When her kids graduate from incontinent to continent, and when their children can go COMPLETELY on their own without reminders.

A jetted tub hamper full of dirty clothes has nothing on that, baby!