Golden Thinking Time

Third grade teachers should know how to correctly pronounce words, right? While I was showering today I was remembering my third grade teacher and how she always pronounced “orange” incorrectly. She called it “oinj”. I think that is how you would spell it. Maybe not. I do my best thinking in the shower- the best 7 minutes of my day.

Let me take you through my shower today:
Before even going upstairs, I lay down the ground rules for the kids:
No going outside while I am in the shower.
No answering the phone or door.
No TV.
No markers.

All set and ready for my 12:37 shower. (Yippee! Not quite one o’clock yet, I am already doing better than yesterday!) I turned on the water and it was too hot, so as I adjusted the temperature I realized that all I needed was to turn on the cold- it came out warm anyway. It was so refreshing. That is what is great about living in Arizona- no need to even turn on the water heater in the summer.

As I began shampooing my hair I glanced at the bottle and did a little inner laugh because the husband always makes jokes out of that bottle of Pantene and the foreign language description of “Hidritacion Diaria”. How does one coax their husband’s head out of the gutter? But then I remember an episode of The Muppet Show where a salesman asks if a customer is interested in his shampoo, and the customer responds that he doesn’t want SHAMpoo, he wants REALpoo. So, I resign myself to the fact that even when the husband is not in the shower with me, he is in the shower with me.

Coming out of the Pantene reverie, middle daughter enters the bathroom and this is the conversation that ensues:
Middle Daughter: Mom, my sister just found a bug and it is hungry.
Me: k, it will have to make its own lunch. Put it outside.
Middle Daughter: It’s ok, Mom, she put it in the plant so it could eat.
Me: Oh, good.

While rinsing out the conditioner, which also had a version of the shampoo description printed upon it, I begin to make decisions what I will wear upon completion of this lovely, lukewarm shower. I settle on yoga pants because a) I need to do laundry and b) doesn’t that sound comfortable? But then I wonder, does one have to do yoga to be in the yoga pants club? I tivo’d a few yoga episodes that were on PBS, but never did them. Does that count- it's on the tivo if I ever need to do it. And then, I realized that if I were to do those yoga sessions, I would look much better in those pants.

About this time, my little son enters and says something about helping him with something. Parting the shower curtain, I see a balled up fist encapsulated in an inside-out black glove, no fingers poking through. “Can you help me, Mom?” I send him out to ask his sister, telling him I am not quite done and my hands are wet. Turning off the water a minute later, he toddles back in and smiles, “You all done!” As he holds his gloved hand up to my face to help him fix it.

Shower time= golden thinking time.