In the bath tonight, I took one of those little foam alphabet letters (the letter N), got it wet, and stuck it on her back. She didn’t really notice it, so I moved it to her ample belly. She giggled and pulled it off. To bite it, naturally. I took it from her and stuck it back on her chest. We repeated this process three or four times, and then she did something interesting. I was kneeling next to the bath, with my right form-arm resting on the edge of the tub and my right hand hanging over the bathwater. She took the letter N and stuck in on the back of my hand, where it stuck! She giggled. I took the letter off my hand and placed it back on her tummy. She grabbed the letter and again put it on the back of my hand.

After this definitive display of intellectual and motor-control prowess, she resumed attempting to chew the letter N. She was in bed sleeping twenty minutes later.

Glorious conditioner, where have you been all of Siena’s life?

Bath time has been something of a race against the clock prior to this week. In order to bathe Siena, I’ve been putting Thalia into her Exersaucer just outside the bathroom so she can see me and have something to play with. Then I have to get Siena bathed, dried, dressed, and hair combed before Thalia implodes. (Fortunately, as Thalia gets older, the time to implosion has been getting later.) Sometimes I fail, and then Siena’s left to get herself dressed and into bed, but recently it’s been working pretty well.

This week I decided to upend things, and for the first time, I put the girls into the bath together.

I think it worked out rather well:

She especially likes getting water splashed in her face (as evidenced by the water droplets and the fact she’s not screaming). We like this because we like to think it means she won’t be averse to getting water splashed in her face. Like when standing in a rain shower, swimming in the pool, playing with water balloons, having a fire hose of gin and tonic shot at her face on a game show, that sort of thing.

Seriously, we saw that last one happen on a British game show called Don’t Forget Your Toothbrush. One of the contestants had to guess the mixed drink after having it shot out of a fire hose at her face. It was tremendously funny. The show would also have a superfan segment that had a celebrity and a fan of that celebrity battle it out on trivia about the celebrity’s life, and the fan almost always won. Here’s a great segment on YouTube that features Cher, which should appeal to Mo at the very least, and demonstrates the point precisely if you watch from about 4:30 on (technically the fan should’ve won, and you’ll see why). But I digress…

In any event, she was just kicking, and tossing her hands up and down, and generally have a grand old time, and of course water was getting everywhere. So we are quickly entertaining the idea that the next bath is going to be in the tub like a normal human being. Or large dog.