Showers Didn't Used to Suck

[Disclaimer:  The word "shower" as used in the context of this post is not referring to those events where you have brought a gift for someone who is getting married or having a baby, but rather that thing you do everyday, hopefully, where you step into a large basin-like apparatus and water sprays down onto your body from a device overhead. What you do from there is your business.  Just want us to be on the same page here.]

Think back...long, long ago - however long that is before you had kids - to what a shower used to look like.  You know, when the act of showering meant more than simply not smelling badly for other people and washing strawberry banana Yo Toddler out of your hair.  Can you get there in your mind?  Is the picture clear now?  My own faint memory recalls an endless supply of bath salts, shower moisturizers, exfoliating scrubs, and other expensive spa products - even those clever little bath oil beads that made the whole room smell like delicious lavender or jasmine.  I'm definitely a "Calgon, take me away" kind of girl.  Sure, showers are nice and functional, but there's nothing like a bubble bath, candles and music (highly recommend the Pandora 80s Love Songs station...or whatever you like...) to achieve that full state of zen.

Flash forward to showers in the present day and it's something altogether different. Those days of the carefree, luxurious shower or soak no longer exist.  It's as if the moment my son popped out of the womb, the shower as I had known it disappeared forever.  The shower died so that my son could live...or something as dramatic, but maybe less morbid than that.  Anyway, these days I don't even WANT to do it.  The very act of showering has been reduced to a necessity - a nuisance that happens, begrudgingly, for the sake of other people.  Some of you reading this are those people.  We may be friends...or colleagues...or family.  Yep, I'm showering for you.  On a regular basis, I promise.  You're welcome.

There are some key reasons why "the shower", as I will refer to bathing in general from this point forward, is no longer relaxing or even something I am motivated to do with any sort of gusto or excitement.  Here's why:

#1) "The shower" is too short.  
A normal, enjoyable shower should last longer than anywhere from three and a half to nine minutes.  The three and a half minute shower usually happens around 5:45am on any given weekday that Dallas decides that the crack of dawn is an appropriate time to rise and f%^*ing shine.  The usual plan is to wake up to my 5:30am alarm, grab the clothes I might have laid out, not forget the monitor and descend those loud, creaky stairs to our downstairs bathroom quickly enough to get showered.  On a great day, I can squeeze out another ten minutes to get halfway dressed and concoct half a hairdo before D wakes up. Accidentally drop my phone or click the light switch too hard and I have woken the boy. If he's up, I get a 3.5 minute panic shower because the door is wide open and I'm peeking out every 10 seconds to make sure my child, who I left on the couch in front of the TV, hasn't run out of the house, isn't playing on the stairs or didn't figure out how to turn on the oven.  If it turned out that he'd learned how to make his own toast, after a few serious questions I'd probably call that a win and let that one go.  And shave my other leg tomorrow.

I should probably try taking a lesson from my husband who somehow manages to accomplish his full grooming routine REGARDLESS OF THE SITUATION.  Once his thirty-five minutes of bathroom occupancy passes (flush, shave, shower, dress, zzzzz...), it's finally my turn.  My sick version of passive-aggressive fun is to then model what his shower SHOULD have been. And when I emerge 9 mins later clean and dressed, I imagine he's thinking, "Wow - if she can get ready that quickly, why does it take me so long?  I'm going to work on that..."  Pretty sure that's not happening.  

#2) "The shower" gets in the way of getting sh*% done.  
I don't really do leisurely. Apologies in advance.  I just don't feel the same excitement that others do to laze around the house in my pajamas on weekend mornings sipping coffee on the couch under a throw blanket or some other version of smelling the proverbial roses.  I got sh*% to do and two days off to get it done.  Coffee is a means to facilitate that process, not to feel cozy.  Errands, park time, play dates, birthday parties and family get-togethers happen on weekends and we still gotta work in Dallas's lunchtime and mid-day nap.  In other words, let's get it crackalackin'.  If we don't settle on the Saturday schedule of events until 9:30am Saturday morning, then I have officially forfeited my shower time.  And guess what... that goes for everyone.  Let's get our clothes on, get in the car and get the hell over to Target to get this butter, diapers and socks.

#3) "The shower" is no longer a mini-spa treatment.  
Please refer back to the above.  If I'm trying to get to Target, I damn sure don't have time to pamper.  No idea what the inside of your shower looks like, but between the baby head-to-toe organic shampoo and wash, vapor baby bubble bath, giant bucket of bath toys, Jason's collection of manly washes and scrubs and my own essentials, these bath salts and exfoliating moisture lotions just ain't gonna fit.  You're saying to yourself, "Why doesn't she just hang one of those ginormous metal shower shelves and organize it all on there?".  Oh, we've thought of that. Unfortunately, having the world's most stupidly high and ridiculously angled shower head (seriously, it's like eight feet high at a 20 degree angle) makes what should have been a simple solution virtually impossible. Sound like anything in your house?  #uselesscrap #reasonsihatemyhouse  Yeah, yeah...first world problems...

#4) "The shower" is no longer private.  
I'm pretty sure it's easier to enjoy the shower without the tiny version of you furiously turning the doorknob back and forth, wailing uncontrollably because he can't get in.  All of that noise kind of ruins...actually, bludgeons...the rain-like solitude.  My open-door, 5:45am version of the shower usually involves Dallas not staying on the couch where I left him, coming in, and flipping the curtain back and forth saying things like, "Hi!" or "Mommy's taking a shower" or "Mommy's getting nice and clean" or "Mommy not close the door"...while I try to shield my lady parts. Yes, I do that.  I don't need him scarred, writing a book about his "mornings in the shower with mommy" twenty years from now, calling it therapy.

If any of this clicked for you, congratulations!  You've just won a lifetime supply of...well, nothing.  Not much light at the end of this particular tunnel.  Maybe if we all had cool badges, we'd feel better.  Yes, like the Girl Scouts!  I did that for a year in fourth grade... Imagine the "Shortest Shower" badge and the "My Kid Doesn't Smile in Pictures" badge and what is sure to be the all-time favorite "Pinterest Loser" badge!  I think the badge for alcohol will just be called "Alcohol".  What would your "badges" be?  Comment, share, etc.

Stay guilt free and showered!
-Regan