The shower challenge

We've recently had our bathroom done. When we moved into our house we had this shower made out of an airing cupboard. We thought was a bit weird but no big deal, until day one of living in the house, when we realised there wasn't enough space to get changed inside the shower so we had to get naked on the landing, which is fine except for when you have visitors. And then when you have two kids the shower challenge gets even more challenging.

Dan leaves the house around 7:30 and seeing as I'm now on maternity leave and I don't really have anywhere to be, it make sense that I shower after that. I have developed various methods of containing small children while I shower, from newborn the bouncy chair worked well. Then about 5-10 months the door bouncer was a winner. Then there was a stage where I couldn't contain them and I had to just shower when Dan was in, until about 20 months when they become more interested in watching something on Netflix on a laptop, than smashing your laptop on the floor. Till eventually they can, in theory, cope with playing by themselves and knocking on the door if they need you.

Then comes the multi-child-shower-lodger challenge. At the moment we're at the one child playing and one bouncy chair child stage. If that's all going well then you just have to worry about not flashing your lodger (because you have to leave the door open to see the bouncy chair child). Add potty training in to the equation and showering becomes a military operation, which if preformed successfully is the achievement of your day.

To try and make the situation easier (and the house less weird), we just had our bathroom done. So the shower cupboard and toilet room next door became one bigger room with a toilet and sink, and the bath (which is the other side of the landing) gained a shower above it. We had this done while we were on holiday. It was nice to be out of the way and the added bonus was we asked the plumber to feed our rabbit. Unfortunately we got a call half way through the holiday to say "that wall we took down ended up being a supporting wall so it's gonna cost you extra".

the shower cupboard with added duck tape so that I can watch Eric while not flashing Rachel

The new sink, where the shower used to be, which is now next to a toilet

Here is an example of a typical shower routine from this week.

7:30am Percy is playing quietly and Eric is asleep, I seize my opportunity and tell Percy I am going for a quick shower, he seems fine. I ask Rachel, our lodger, to knock on if Eric wakes up and I begin getting undressed.

7:35am I hear Percy asking Rachel (who is trying to get ready for work) to play jigsaws with him. I put my clothes back on and do a jigsaw with Percy, then I suggest he watches a bit of TV. That way he will stay still and not bother Rachel. I put on a DVD for him and make my second attempt at the shower.

7:40am Eric wakes up, he won't be able to sit happily in the bouncy chair now because he needs a feed. I reluctantly go downstairs and sit with Percy and feed Eric. I normally only let Percy watch tv once a day, so it's annoying to have used up the TV card this early on... and to not have got a shower out of it. Theres no point switching it off now as he'll kick off because I've only just put it on, and it's not like I can really do anything fun with him as I'm feeding Eric.

8am Eric finishes the feed and it's time to switch the TV off, cue massive meltdown.

8:15 after multiple time outs Percy finally calms down enough for me to contemplate another shower attempt. I get Eric set up in the bouncy chair, now that he's full of milk he's pretty chilled out. That is until I accidentally spray him with water, because we don't have a shower curtain yet.

8:20 my shower comes to an end when I hear Percy shouting me. He's done a wee, half on the potty and half in his pants. In my towel I go downstairs and get him fresh pants.

8:25 I attempt to get dressed. I eventually manage after several more interruptions from both the boys.

8:45 I am dressed! only an hour and 15 mins after I stared trying.

It's been a difficult week. Dan called me from work at lunch time to ask how I was doing, it wasn't going well and he asked if there was anything he could do. "Book yourself in for a vasectomy right now" was my response.

If anyone reading this has a morning routine where they jump in the shower and get dressed within 20 mins with no distractions count yourself lucky.

Although I don't want to fall into a grass in greener trap. Some people have to walk miles to wash in a dirty river and some people have to deal with all this, and turn up for work on time looking professional. The nice thing about being on maternity leave is my head is prrety clear of stuff.

My to do list looks like this:
1) keep family alive.

So far I have a 100% success rate.

I will end with an unrelated thought, which could be a competition. Today I was at Dan's parents church and the preacher was talking about "original sin". It made me wonder, What is the most original sin? e.g common Sin might be things like lying or coveting but what sin is unlikely to have been done before? I thought of "lusting after a slug" but I'd love to hear your ideas, leave me a comment. I might pick the best one and write a poem about it.