Yet Another Valid Reason to Not Drink Bath Water

Isaac's new favorite pastime is to fill his mouth with a liquid (juice, milk, water...whatever) and spit it out like a fountain. Or just spit it out. Not the most wonderful thing for my son to be doing, but very boy like and one of the lesser abrasives. Still, I squashed it pretty quickly.

Or so I thought.

Monitoring his drinking worked well. Taking his drink away when he spit it out worked well. What I did not count on was his performance in the bathtub.

He started filling his rinsing cup with bath water and drinking it. I took the cup away. We are teaching him to wash his own hair, so as he is rinsing his hair, he opens his mouth. What am I supposed to take away there? The best is when he lays in the water and opens his mouth, taking a huge drink.

He was spitting the water out. Now he is not. He's swallowing the dirty, soapy bath water. Again, what do I take away? Bath time? He hates the shower, so sometimes if I am feeling really impatient and cranky, I will threaten to turn on the shower. But in retrospect I don't want to scar him of the shower and make him think that taking one is punishment.

I'm pretty sure Isaac solved the problem for me.

On Monday, my friends came over to watch the BCS national title game (Yep, I'm a football fan.). Isaac had his bath, drinking a fair amount of bubble bath-y dirty water. Sometime in the first quarter he began to complain of a headache. I asked if he wanted medicine and he said no, he just wanted to cuddle. FIRST WARNING SIGN. My son is turning three this month, and he NEVER wants to cuddle for more than 1 minute unless something is up.

And came the vomitting. While cuddled on my lap, Isaac said he was choking. And then proceeded to throw up on my lap. All over me, all over himself, all over the couch. Yuck. I put him on the floor, and wiped up the vomit from my leg so I could stand. As I was standing up, he threw up again. Took a step back, and did it again. 3 MORE TIMES.

I took him in the bathroom, changed him and brought him into the kitchen. While sitting on the bench waiting for his tylenol, since he was still complaining of a headache, he threw up 3 more times. This is the first time he had been sick like this, spitting up as a nursing infant does not count.

Once his tummy was surely empty and he had settled down, I wrapped him in a blanket wearing only his diaper and got to rock him to sleep. That never happens. In a groggy state, I got him into new pjs and into his bed. He slept soundly and woke up feeling fine the next day.

And now he doesn't drink the bath water anymore.