My Showers

During adoption training, I was told that I would need to supervise my kids every moment they were awake. Naturally, I wondered how I would take showers, change clothes, go to the bathroom and maintain my sanity if I couldn’t have a moment alone. There are many single parents out there successfully raising kids who are clean and dressed. When I asked the question of the case managers, they said that I had lots of options, like showering after they go to sleep with a baby monitor in the bathroom in case they call for me…or in the morning when they wake up. They also said to stop stressing out about it until I had the kids because all kids are different and they all have different needs as far as how much they need to be supervised. This was one of those things that just got into my head and I couldn’t get it out. It kept bugging me. Maybe it’s because I was afraid it was an example of how I wasn’t going to be able to fulfill all of their needs. Maybe it’s because I just needed something to obsess about. In any case, I was able to lessen my stress by telling myself that my case manager wasn’t going to let me adopt kids that needed so much assistance that I couldn’t take a shower. That ended up being true.

The day after they came to live with me, they had been having little battles all day. Lots of crying and tattling and yelling at each other. But, it was time for my first shower. I turned on the TV to cartoons and told them I was going to take a shower. Considering we rarely even turn on the TV, I figured this would be mesmerizing enough to get me 20 minutes. I told Joey that the bathroom door would be unlocked but they weren’t to come in or knock unless someone was really hurt, not for a spat or to ask a question or tell me a story. About halfway through my shower, with shampoo in my hair, Joey started knocking on the door. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, so I kept saying “What? I can’t hear you.” He didn’t open the door. Pretty soon the knocking stopped. I hurried to finish my shower and rushed to dry off. I wrapped a towel around me and flew out of the bathroom. I couldn’t hear crying, so I immediately decided no one was hurt. I was prepared to find Joey and explain that I was serious when I said not to interrupt me unless it was an emergency. When I got to the TV room, I asked Joey what had happened to cause him to knock and he said, “Well the toilet was overflowing and I thought you’d want to know.” Well, hmm…yes I would. I went to check out the toilet and later assured him that, yes, he had made the right decision and that the toilet backing up was definitely an emergency.

Since then, I’ve done most of my showering before they wake up or at the gym. Just because that’s the way it’s worked out…not because I can’t leave them for 20 minutes. Nighttime didn’t end up being a good idea because that’s really their most active time. When they should be sleeping is when most things happen around here. Ends up I hadn’t really needed to stress out about it anyway…what good did that do me?