Bath time

Things seemed to be going so well. We spent the afternoon playing with Wytie, the neighbor, which means I get to chat with Wytie’s cute grandma, who is quite a fun and interesting person. Then we came home without the usual fight to get Thing 2 out of Wytie’s house and away from his toys… and we got in the car and drove for a pizza, came home, cooked it, and ate it. I got one cheese pizza and one salad, and I ate the salad, and the girls ate a whole large cheese pizza minus one slice I ate, and one smallish slice that was left over.
Then we went up for a bath.
I did a bad thing.
I ran the bath for them, then let them play in the tub while I came down and started doing internet research for my trip. I cleaned up the kitchen a little, and took care of a few things outside.
I went upstairs to check on them and slipped on the water by the door, nearly going down. The black and white rug in front of the tub was gray, absolutely soaked.
WHO DID THIS???
Thing 1 said “I did not” and Thing 2 said “I did it.”
At least she owns up to it… maybe she won’t do that if I continue to lose my temper. Which I did.
I kept not quite shouting, I don’t think, but sort of loudly saying no no no, we don’t do this! Thing 2 was laughing. I reiterated I was mad and this was bad… I finally barked at her loudly and intensely enough that she stopped laughing and started looking a little contrite.
I didn’t even know where to start cleaning up. The rug on the other side of the bathroom in front of the sink was sopping, the rug in front of the tub was completely full of water, weighed a ton, and was almost impossible to deal with. The plastic bag/sack thing that we put their toys in was half full of water. I tossed both sopping rugs into the shower, dumped the toys out into the sink, grabbed a towel and started mopping up. It was hard because the floor was so slippery.
I occasionally loudly reminded Thing 2 that this was awful and I could not believe she did this.
Then I looked up to see her dumping another large cupful of water over the side of the tub. I flipped, whipped her out of the tub and laid her on the wet tile floor. I draped a towel over her, and grabbed a diaper and put it on her. She was crying she was cold, blah blah blah… Not too much sympathy from me.

I got Thing 1 out after Thing 2 was in her pajamas and I had finished mopping up the floor, for the most part.
Then we hit another snag. They wouldn’t come brush their teeth. I had very little patience left, looking at my evening of hoping to get ready for leaving the country for a week, and seeing this as an obstacle. It wasn’t, really, it just set me back half an hour or so… but everything just seemed to piss me off.

I finally told Thing 1 she didn’t get to pick stories because she had used up all her time trying to make a new set of pajamas out of the foamy letter blocks, or whatever she was trying to do. We have threatened her with cavities sincerely enough, apparently, that she wigged out when she thought I wasn’t going to let her brush her teeth.
We quickly brushed them, read our stories, and at 9:15 or so, I came downstairs. They should stay down.

The neighbors quite possibly heard my ranting. Sigh.

I am feeling guilty for leaving the girls with my folks. Last night Thing 2 would not go to bed, but sat up and cried and hollered she wanted to sleep in my bed. She hasn’t done that for a while… But it just adds to my guilt to leave these little trouble makers with my folks.

I expect to thoroughly enjoy myself aside from this guilt. I leave the day after tomorrow, and haven’t prepared nearly enough… I need to pack myself and the girls, get all my ducks in a row to leave town for a week… tomorrow is going to be awful. The next day too.