Water is wet
I’m surprised at how ill-equipped I am to handle some aspects of parenthood. My two-year-old, Gus, is the greatest kid in the world and my reason for living. He has the capacity to melt me with that sly grin, but he also has the ability to shatter my nerves, as John Prine would say. That whiny sound two-year-olds make works like a parental frazzle-ray gun.
His latest irritation has showed up during bath time. Understand that bath time has been precious for us, because he entertains himself in an enclosed space for upwards of an hour, giving Paula or me a chance to read or put on makeup (just a little eyeliner for me, and I’m done). We get splashed a bit, but we’re sitting - almost relaxing, even.
Now bath time has a dark side. Gus has discovered that putting water in a vessel leaves the inside - gasp! - WET! For more than a year, he’s loved filling up these stupid little water bottles and dumping out the water - over and over and over. Now he’s decided it’s a problem that he can’t actually get all of the water out. What used to be a simple process of fill, dump, fill, dump has been replaced with fill, dump, inspect, whine, hand-to-daddy-to-dry, inspect, fill, dump, inspect, whine, etc.
This has happened for a couple of baths now. I suppose it should be obvious to me that he’s sucked me into a game, but he seems genuinely upset by the situation. I hope he gets over it soon.