Chinese Water Torture and How The Dolphin Changed My Life

Your kid may love getting his face uncontrollably sprinkled on from the shower, lucky you! My kid HATES to get his face wet without having something to immediately wipe it off with, he always asks for a napkin to wipe his face off (which cracks me up in general.) Shower time is like Chinese Water Torture to my sweet first born. So you can imagine my debacle…I know that I set the standards when he was teeny tiny by providing a baby sling for him to lie on in the bathtub. Yet, over the years instead of pouring water over his head and it getting all in his face I gently had him lay his tiny angel head and body on the sling and held my hand at his hairline and gently poured water on his head much like at the beauty shop does to get the soap out. Since his umbilical cord fell off we’ve been doing this. Yes, he’s two and a half years old and still uses the same baby sling from when he was two and a half weeks old. IT’S SO FREAKING EASY this way. He can splash around in the water and play with his toys then I bust out the sling and he can lie there, I can scrub his stinky feet and hands and belly with no fuss. I do not know any different. I do not know any other way to bathe a kid or how to get soap out of their hair without drama.

I’ve tried to have this conversation with my closest of friends, but I just can figure out how they bathe their kids without getting water in their face without a fuss…unless they use the sling. How do I wash his hair without it getting in his face? How do I do this? It’s more complicated to me than doing a global debt service coverage for a Fortune 500 company. Why does this plague me so?

I’ve been secretly stressed out about this for a few months now. My little boy has hit a growth spurt and the sling is becoming well, not ok anymore.

Ok so yesterday we went to Lowe’s to look around at “tawlets” (toilets for you civilized folk) and I accidentally found this little happy shower thing in the shower head section that said “My Own Shower,” it was for kids. It had this fun little cartoon-like dolphin that showers your little bugga boo at his own level instead of a big ol’ mommy / daddy shower that pelts water at you from 35 feet up in the air and gets all in your face and causes babies to scream like they are being dropped from sky scrapers.

So, I bought the dolphin thing. It was $16 and Hill seemed to want to play with it while we shopped, which made it worth the 16 bucks in itself even if it didn’t work out. We got home and later that night Chip hooked it up. It has an adaptor that hooks to the adult shower head but when you disconnect the dolphin hose the adult shower works like normal. It’s very easy and I’m sure this is handy for when you share a shower with your family, as not everyone wants to shower with the dolphin, I suppose.

The dolphin has changed my life. Absolutely hands down the best money I have ever spent. At first Hill was a little hesitant. He wanted only to stick his right leg in where the dolphin sprayed. So we did the hokey pokey and he got his legs and arms wet. This really did help; I swear we sang the Hokey Pokey. Then I told him he needed to get his belly button wet. So he did. Then he got brave and wanted to drink the water so he stuck his tongue out and let it splash in his face a little. We had to get a ‘napkin’ (towel), but he was ok with it. I had him turn around and back up to the shower and I tilted his head back to get his hair wet. He fussed for just a second then realized it was ok. That was absolutely all it took. Right then and there he became a professional shower taker. I made a HUGE deal about it and told him how big he was and how he can take a big boy shower and get his hair wet! It was amazing. I may have cried. He called for his Daddy to come watch him back up to the shower and get his hair wet so he could see how big of a boy he has become!

There is a little bar in Hill’s shower that I guess is used to hang wash cloths on? Anyway it’s now the bar that Hill holds on to so he safely leans back and gets his hair wet. The water doesn’t go everywhere so you are able to leave the shower curtain open and sit there and supervise. You can also plug the drain and they can still splash around and play with toys while the dolphin fills it up.

I think he played in the shower for probably 45 minutes, I could not get him out. He was so proud of himself and he had so much fun playing! He’s always been the strange kid that asks you randomly if he can go take a bath, he’s never minded bath time at all. This has just totally taken us to a new stage of bath taking fun and put a new spin on EVERYTHING. My big man is growing up so fast!

Below is a picture of the baby sling I was talking about that we’ve used for two and a half years.

Then I took a picture of the dolphin and how it’s hooked up…and of course Hill has to show you how the dolphin works!