Big girl's bath

It's been coming on for a while now and, as usual, Daisy's parents were the last to jump on the developmental bandwagon.

Up until last week, we were still bathing Daisy in her luxury, soothing baby bath. Hubby would fill the bath up in the bathroom and carry it into her nursery where we would plop her on her back in her bath sling, turn on the jets and lather her up.

About two or three weeks ago, Daisy decided that she didn't want to lay back any more. Instead of complying happily as she has done for the past five months, she put her elbows down before her back in a sort of uncomfortable-looking, half sitting position. Her legs were all-but touching the bottom of the baby bath but still her parents persevered with the baby bath.

Finally, when she started sitting up on her own last week, it spelled the beginning of the end of this ritual. The final straw was when she discovered a new aptitude at splashing, frequently leaving us and her nursery floor completely soaked.

But what to do? Too big for the baby bath. Too small for the regular bath and not stable-enough sitting up to avoid smacking our head on the edges.

Welcome Quacky Ducky to our bath-time ritual.





















You blow him up, pop him in your tub and hey presto you have a soft baby bath for your little one to roll around in. He even quacks when you squeeze his beak. He's also supposed to let you know when the bath water is too hot but so far we're not impressed with his sensitivity - Daisy would be bathing in cold water if we listened to Mr. Ducky!

Anyway, Daisy loves it. We can now sit her up and give her toys to munch on, which is especially helpful given she is going through a bout of teething pain.

We, on the other hand, are pretty grossed-out and are being forced to address the sorry-state of our guest bathroom (now, I guess, Daisy's bathroom) up-close-and-personal. We knew all this before, of course - the floor tiles are old, poorly-laid, and the grout is cracking; the wall tiles are hideous; the door is a disgusting blue on the back side; the accessories/fittings are a yucky 70s gold - but we've been able to turn a blind-eye until now.

So, I guess our next project is to give the bathroom a make-over. I'm thinking a fun "beach" theme that will look exciting for Daisy but not force guests to shower with a pink teddy-bear shower curtain.

Before I sign-off I have to share this picture of a "European" style baby tub that I found on Amazon.com. Have you ever seen anything so crazy in your life? And what's funny is, I betcha babies love it. Although, for $60, I think I could find a nice salad bowl in the cupboard...

(Incidentally, despite being European, I've never seen one of these in my life.)


















More pics from bathtime here.