Bath time blues

For some reason, Biscuit did not want to take a bath tonight.

He asked early in the evening if he could watch TV in my bedroom. I told him he could watch a show after his bath, but at the time he asked, we hadn't even had dinner yet.

So as we were cleaning up after dinner, I said to Biscuit, "Are you ready for a bath?"

"No. Not yet," he said. "Maybe later."

Usually, he gets so excited about watching TV that he wants to hurry to the bathtub. But for some reason tonight, he was stalling.

Jeff was folding some clothes on our bed, and Biscuit wandered in there. "Are you ready for your bath?" Jeff asked.

"Dad, when somebody says 'no,' it means 'no,'" Biscuit said. "That's what I say to all your questions about taking a bath."

I was directly in Biscuit's line of sight, and I barely got my back turned before I cracked up. You cannot under any circumstances let them see you laugh. They'll think they've done something wonderful, and they'll repeat the performance over and over, especially in all the wrong situations.

After his comment, Biscuit walked into the living room to play some more. I walked in there and said, "Biscuit, you need to go take a bath."

"I had a bath last week, Mom," Biscuit said. "I'm a firefighter, and firefighters don't take baths. Being a firefighter is dangerous, Mom. They don't take a bath."

"Being a firefighter IS dangerous, but their jobs are also very dirty, so they DO take baths," I said to him. Silly me, trying to rationalize with a 3-year-old.

"I'm kinda tired, Mom," Biscuit said.

"Do you want to go to bed?" I asked him.

"Um, I don't need a bath, so I can just go to bed," Biscuit said.

He would rather skip out on the rest of his evening and go straight to bed instead of taking a bath.

"Because firefighters don't take baths, Mom," he said. It's almost like if he repeated it enough times, he thought I would believe it.

"Listen, I don't care what firefighters do, YOU are going to take a bath. Go see Dad right now," I said.

"Okaaaaay," Biscuit said. "I'll go. But I don't want to." 

But I'm happy to report that Biscuit is clean and ready for bed. Let's hope my pro-bath boy is back tomorrow night.