"Bubble Boy"

Anyone who has had children knows getting them ready for bed, settled down - the whole drill there - can often be a bit chaotic. Right?

And with my granddaughter, Miss Maya, (who will be three this coming Wednesday) this can sometimes be quite an ordeal too. Maya has some issues with developmental delays and can, at times, get very tempermental.

For a while, Maya really enjoyed getting her evening bath, regardless of who was bathing her. If I was having a good day and felt up to getting down on the floor on my hands and knees (and able to pull myself back up to a standing position afterwards), I could bathe her or her dad could bathe her but generally, it was her Mother who did the honors there.

However, all that ended abruptly one night when her dad, while bathing her, made a dire mistake and used regular shampoo instead of the baby stuff that doesn't burn the eyes. It was months before she forgot that ordeal of the burning eyes from the shampoo getting in them and if her Daddy even suggested to her that he give her a bath, she would go into a screaming frenzy. I can't say as I blame her either as I think I may have been a tad like that too when I was a youngster if memory serves me right.

Well, eventually she did relent and will now allow her Dad to bathe her again. So, tonight, Mandy suggested he do the honors but when the subject of getting a bathe was first mentioned, she knew that was also a signal that bedtime was going to be close behind and she wasn't quite ready for that. So to cajole her into going into the bathroom and all, Mandy suggested that Bill get the bottle of bubble stuff and coax her in under the guise of "blowing bubbles."

This sounded like a good game plan to me.

Bill grabbed the little bottle of bubble stuff and the ring and Maya happily tagged along behind him into the bathroom. But, within 5 minutes time, Bill came zipping out of the bathroom, growling all the way out to the kitchen about having a hell of a mess now in the bathroom to clean up. This was because this being a new bottle of bubble stuff, it had the foil type seal on the top and as he tried to peel it back, he somehow messed up and ended up poking a hole in it instead with his finger, getting bubble stuff all over his hand, which in turn caused him to lose his grip on the bottle and it went flying. Bubble stuff splashing ALL over the bathroom floor and the bottle emptying with narry a bubble getting blown in the process. And nothing handy in the bathroom either with which to clean up the mess.

Just the look on his face as he stomped past Mandy and I, through the living room and on to the kitchen to grab a roll of paper towels and the level of grumbling he was doing, was enough to just throw Mandy and I both into absolute fits of laughter.

Enough so that it was one of those occasions when something strikes you as so comical that you can't stop laughing really hard, your sides hurt and you cry!

And Bill was seeing not a whit of humor in this entire event!

I tried desperately to stiffle the giggles, but couldn't. As he passed back through, paper towels under his arm, Mandy laughed aloud at his dilemma which kind of ticked him off a bit at us and he growled at us "Yeah, right! Go ahead and laugh!" And that just made us laugh all the more!

As we continued to snicker and listen to him grump while cleaning up the mess, I whispered to Mandy that we could now give Bill yet another nickname - just call him "Bubble Boy" which did nothing but send her into gales of laughter all over again.

Finally,he did get Maya bathed and brought her out, all dressed in her lavender jammies, looking so cute and loveable. He was by that time, a little less stressed out and could actually tell us how the whole event had unfolded. And also too, about the look on Maya's face as she turned to him and said "Bubbles, Daddy?" She just couldn't figure out what happened that there were no bubbles to be seen tonight floating in the air.

As she stood in the playpen listening to him tell this story, you could see her getting a somewhat confused, questioning look on her face and once again, she looked at him and said, "Bubbles, daddy, bubbles?"

Yep, Mandy and I both agreed that Bill will now be referred to as "Bubble Boy."

That is if we can say it to each other without totalling cracking up laughing at the mental picture again.