An adventure in the bathtub

If you are a mom who loves cleanliness, I'll advise you not to read on! I would usually put myself in the "love clean" category, and while I do, cleanliness has taken on a whole new meaning for me with having 3 kids in the house. This is to my sister's delight (in a good way :). However, if your little one struggles with eczema, there is a little bit of helpful info. included below.

Because of Addie's skin problems, she requires at least one bath a day. If I was supper committed I would do 2, but that doesn't seem to happen much. I have found eczema responds better with more frequent "moisture baths," as I call them. I have tried many ways to do this, after reading about them, and by far we have found one method works best with Addie. I put in some Sweet Knee Oatmeal Cookie bath and start running warm water into her bathtub. Then in Adelyn goes! She really loves her bath, when she is not tired or hungry. I let her soak a bit, with a wash cloth on her head to help lock in the moisture. After a minute or so I add a fair amount of olive oil to the water. Then I start giving her a rub down all over, massaging her whole body with the oil water. I do this for about 5 minutes. Then out she comes, I pat her dry and finish with Sweet Knee bun glaze (I know, weird name - it's actually intended to be a diaper rash preventer, but many also use it for rashes, etc.) all over her body. If she has really bad breakouts, I'll add a little bit of hydrocortisone cream before the Bun glaze. Others have found that letting their baby soak for 10 minutes in the water and then rubbing them down with Vasoline helps. I tried this and it did moisturize, but I liked the all natural element of olive oil and, although it doesn't moisturize quite as well, her skin seems to do better with it.

So, anyway, this afternoon she desperately needed a bath. We missed last night and her skin was getting quite dry and irritated. I put her in her bath as usual and turned around to get a towel for her. I came back and added the olive oil and gently started to rub her down. I was getting tons of grins and smiles and coos. I had my hands and arms in the grease water, up to my elbows, but was loving it. A wash cloth went on her head as usual and I was massaging. I give all these details before explaining what happened next. I got her out of her tub (no rinsing), rubbed her down with Bun Glaze and then dressed her. She looked at me with happy smiles - all done! However, I then went to empty out her bathtub...as I did huge clumps of yellow mass started dumping out and I thin, "that did not look like oatmeal bath." I just stood there staring trying to figure out what was going on - quickly I realized - POOP! She had pooped in her bath. She must have done it as I got her towel from the rack....all before I proceeded to rub her down all over with that water in her tub. "GROSS," I think. For about one minute I just look down at her trying to figure out what to do next. All my girls have pooped in their baths before, so you'd think I'd be used to this. But Addie had yet to, thankfully, because her baths are so long and frequent. The tired side of me said, "Oh she'll be fine, but the mom inside said, "I've got to clean her off." My shirt as well is splattered with water. So, I clean out the big bath tub and her tub, strip her down and back in she goes. All the while Selah wakes up from the banging and is screaming. I get Addie cleaned and back out. As I'm getting olive oil to rub on her (since I didn't put it in her bath this time), the bottle slips from my hand and it goes squirting everywhere, all over the new towel and Addie. Fortunately, I catch it with my other hand. Addie looks up at me with olive oil streaming down her face and gives me this completely confused look, as if to say, "what is going on here?" She is now dressed and everything from before goes in the hamper. I run to get Selah and she comes to the bathroom as I finish up. But as I dump the bath water out, MORE POOP comes out. "What???" Then it dawned on me...there is a little plastic seat in her tub, attached to the bottom. The poop was stuck underneath and coming out every time I rinsed water through the tub. Super gross! Again I realize she was sitting in poopy water. But by this time, I'm too tired. As I take the plastic out it's...well, really disgusting (I'll spare you of details). While I'm doing this, Selah is behind me on the potty, crying cause there is no toilet paper. I turn to try to give her some and accidentally tip Addie's bathtub full of water in the wrong direction dousing Selah with a load of water, including blanket (disastrous!). Thankfully, Addie is spared. So, Selah is screaming, Addie is confused, and I'm actually laughing as I think, "I've got to put this on the blog to always remember!"

Now, Selah is calmed down and Addie is happy in her chair. Maybe not entirely clean but let's not think about that!