Now, before I get flamed for leaving a young child alone in the bathroom for a few minutes, let me remind you that this is not a really young baby. She is almost four and at an age where she has started routinely asking for privacy when she uses the bathroom. She was still full of endless energy and showing no signs of sleepiness or sickness. Our house is a very small one story structure and the noise in the bathroom can be heard from any other room you are in not to mention the baby monitor I had nearby amplifies that noise. And, on any given day, I usually leave her alone in the tub for five minutes to play while I hang out in the next room trying to get a few things done so I can get to bed at a decent hour myself.
So off I went to get her towel and nightgown and decided to use the bathroom while I was at it. I figured it would be nice to use my own bathroom instead of the one with the pretty pink princess toddler seat on the potty with said child playing in the tub as my audience.
While I was in the bathroom I could hear her playing in the tub both through the walls and on the baby monitor loud and clearly. Playing indeed she was. I heard a lot of splashing and shouting and laughter and it sounded like she was having a grand old time.
That was all fine and dandy until I returned to the bathroom less than 10 minutes later to get her out of the tub and OMG! It looked like a pipe had burst in my bathroom. There was definitely more water all over the floor than there was in the tub and all of the rugs were soaked through completely. Thrown in the middle of it were some of her favorite little tiny plastic animals.
I did what probably any typical mother exhausted at the end of a long busy day walking in on this type of situation would do. "Get out of the tub!" I screamed. "What on earth do you think you were doing? Take this towel and clean up this mess right now!"
Her lip quivered. She knew she was in big trouble. "But momma," she told me. "I was saving all the animals. The kingdom of Albador got hit by a huge wave. The animals were all getting washed away. They needed me to save them!" (Did a mention that this 3 1/2 year old has an amazing imagination that rivals that of kids at least twice her age?)
As I watched her attempt to mop up the mess I thought back a few minutes ago to all the noise, laughter, and splashing I'd heard over the baby monitor. I realized what a wonderful time she'd been having interrupted by the mean old mommy who walked in on it. I realized how blessed I was to have a little one with such a vivid imagination whose evening could be filled with joy by the simplest thing like small plastic animals that almost got washed away by a tidal wave she created in the tub. I wished for a moment that I could be 3 1/2 again and find so much joy and fun in such a simple little game.
"Well did you save the animals from the big wave?" I asked. The little lip stopped quivering.
"Well the cheetah and the elephant..." she began. I knew I was in for a long, drawn out story that wouldn't make much sense to anyone except the 3 1/2 year old telling it. Together we cleaned up the bathroom as I listened. The animals she saved finally got placed neatly in a row on the windowsill to watch as I helped her finish getting ready for bed.
A few years from now small toy animals and a kingdom that exists only in her imagination will no longer be cool. The 3 1/2 year old will be replaced by a girl who probably wants her mommy nowhere near the bathroom door while she is showering.
Until then Albador and the kingdom of little tiny plastic animals await although they will promptly be moved outdoors to the water table on our back porch as soon as the sun has risen.
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