Mother? or Zookeeper? You Decide.

7:45pm. Chris is in the bath. Norah, who has been in the jumparoo for 10 minutes, is now suffering the neglect and moaning and laying her head so far back that she can see the room upside down. She hangs her arms out dramatically to the side. Howl, howl, howl. I am soooooo alone, she says.

So I pick her up and put her in the Bumbo chair right outside the bathroom door, so I can wash Chris's hair and watch her at the same time, and she can see us, so she will stop howling. I put some toys in her reach and scrub Chris's hair with some soap.

It is time to rinse, and I can't find the usual rinse cup, a nifty little device with rubber on one side so that you can rinse the kids' hair without pouring water in their faces. So I improvise, cupping my hand to stop the water and pouring a bucketful over his head to rinse out the shampoo. The first bucketful works, but the second time, of course, some water gets in his eyes, and with it, some shampoo.

Drama ensues. Shrieks, moans, declarations of being in dire straits, My eyes! My eyes! he says. I look around for the towel and find nothing.

Just then, I hear a clunking sound. Norah, who has been quiet (only I couldn't hear the quietness because of the dramatic soap-in-eyes incident) got a little too ambitious and was reaching for a toy all the way across the hall. As I was pouring soap into Chris's innocent eyes, she threw off her balance, and *plunk*, over she went, Bumbo chair and all.

Meanwhile, Chris continues screaming; he is sure his eyes are melting out of his head from the Sweet Apple baby wash that trickled in due to my negligence. He gets on the phone to contact the attorney who advertises for Wrongful Injury cases during Judge Judy. He is surprisingly good at doing paperwork in the bath. I don't have much time to make things right.

Meanwhile, in the hallway, Norah has not let her setback slow down her ambition. The Bumbo chair is still stuck to her butt and she is whimpering from bumping her head, but unbowed, she continues toward the toy, crawling like an army recruit but with the Bumbo chair riding along like a turtle shell on her back. Must... get... toy...

At this point I am standing in the bathroom doorway, laughing my head off, trying to decide whether to move Norah, Bumbo shell and all, from in front of the closet door where she is crawling, so that I can get a towel to get the water out of Chris's eyes before he files suit, or to bend down and check Norah out for bumps and scratches sustained during the great Bumbo Tip-Over-Clunk of 2011.

I don't really remember what happened next. I think I nudged the Norah-turtle out of the way with my foot and got a towel to dry Chris's eyes, and then removed Norah to a safer location while I got Chris dressed for bed.

Sometimes I feel more like a zookeeper or a lion tamer than a mom. But hey, those are exciting careers too! ;D