Me Soup!

I make stuff up. As a parent, I mean. Always looking for creative ways to keep the day on track and the kids as content as possible. All in the name of parental sanity. I have a sneaking suspicion that I am not the only one.

When my teenagers were little there was a time where they both decided they no longer liked bath time. Ugh. I am not exactly sure why. They take many more baths in the summer time when they are outside getting good and dirty more often. It wasn't like baths were a new thing around here. They didn't seem scared really. Maybe it was a control thing. Maybe they were just testing me out. But, I was getting so tired of the battle most nights. One night a light bulb came on in my head and that is when I started playing 'Me Soup'.

There is an old Shel Silverstein poem called Me Stew.

Image from: http://lynnerickardsauthor.wordpress.com/tag/shel-silverstein/

My kids knew the word soup better than stew so I went with that. I remember saying something along the lines of, "That's it, enough, up to the bathroom, I have an idea." Trying to get them all excited for their bath. I gathered up a pile of toy vegetables and such from their toy kitchen area and made a quick stop by the kitchen for a couple of wooden spoons from my utensil drawer. To the bathroom we went. To play 'Me Soup' in the tub. And it worked!

Now, they already had a bazillion bath toys. Kids get bored, though. I have found that it is better if I rotate the toys in and out of their worlds every so often so that they find them exciting and like new again, each time I bring them back out. This game was just what they needed to adjust their kid-skewed outlook on bath time.

Today, fast forwarding quite a few years, my twin toddlers were cranky as all get out and I decided 'Me Soup' was the answer. They got to play it for the first time today. It was great!

They both had a very good time and cheered up significantly. Whew! My morning has been saved.

I do not have pictures of the other thing I used to do for my second son. Back when he was younger, and 'Me Soup' was old news to him, we had Disco Bath Night. He had one of those plastic disco balls in his bedroom. I brought it into the bathroom with us and plugged it in on the opposite side of the bathroom, far from the tub for safety purposes, along with his radio. We turned out the lights and he took his bath while we listened to some tunes and fun colored lights glowed all over the bathroom. That one was a big hit, too. Like I said, whatever gets us through the day sometimes.

I would love to hear any of your fun bath time ideas. Feel free to comment and share how you stay sane at bath time. Bye for now!