Do you ever get bored by the eleventy billion repetitive acts of child maintenance you perform everyday?

I do. Ben does. We do.

I think Harry and Jack get bored with their routines, too. Because routines are nothing if not, well, routine. Boy, they don't give those Ph.D.s to just anyone, huh?

By bath time, we've really all just had it, you know? Especially since Harry rarely naps, and Jack's fat legs keep getting stuck between the bars of his crib and hindering his naps, and I am dieting and very cranky by the time my calorie budget has run out and am preoccupied doing math in my head to see if I can still maybe have a glass of wine, and Ben is tired and ready for the kids to be asleep so he can watch Entourage reruns and manage his fantasy baseball teams.

It used to be that Ben did bath every night because I was home with the kids all darn day and preferred to vacuum and get everybody's milk together and prep toothbrushes and the like. But now that I have been working more and more (why yes, I am paying for childcare right now, what's it to you? I am working on MY BRAND), Ben has lobbied to split bath duties. I have graciously agreed to do 1 or 2 baths a week (I know-- you all want to be married to me, don't you?), and I am determined to make them the FUNNEST BATHS EVER (which is actually a pretty stupid idea, now that I think about it, and one that could make me Chief Bath Officer, if I am not careful).

On my bath nights, I will not spend the whole time sitting on the toilet lid hunched over my BlackBerry (because ha! I have an iPhone!) and complaining about getting splashed. I will not threaten to take away Harry's before-bed TV time because that particular punishment only hurts the wine-and-internet-starved parents when their widdle anglepants stays up until 10 whining about that ridiculous, anachronistic, naked Little Bear (also, I rarely follow through my on threats because I am awesome like that and threaten really unrealistic things like throwing away ALL THE TOYS)! I will not nag the other parent to vacuum faster because my bath-time-is-not-fun-time stance has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Instead, I will encourage hijinks and hilarity until someone falls down and nearly drowns/hits his head or face or until I have arbitrarily had enough and decide bath is over, prompting giant temper tantrums from all parties that last until our nightly EELS dance party ensues.

Last night, I broke out the big guns: KITCHEN UTENSILS and BLUE FOOD COLORING.
(also, see how red jack's cheeks are? they're also hot and scaly)

Harry was slow to warm up to the whole thing, mainly because he wanted even more blue in the water, but I decided the amount of blue food coloring to use in the bath was the perfect thing to engage in a power struggle with my 3 year old about. God, I'm good.

Jack, though, could not stop stirring the bath-- it was like the funnest thing he's ever done

Sarah, you're thinking, who was watching the kids while you snapped this picture of your toilet-lid sitting husband (who likes to demonstrate that he is a better person than I am by joining bath already in progress after he vacuums, unlike me, who has to be guilted away from the internet when my cleaning time is through)? That's a good question. No one actually. Jack fell down hard enough to break a melamine measuring cup, and bath was over.