Progress Takes Time

I know, like me, most of you are stuck inside during this pandemic.

It sucks. It's awful. It's downright scary. But then I remember, progress takes time.

I have a 6 year old.

You know this if you read my blog and can do simple math.

Last year I had a 5 year old, and the same crummy blog.

That's how that works.

One of the things my daughter has taught me as a father is that "progress takes time."

Sure you can get frustrated at something that seems like it will go on forever, such as Covid-19, or you can hang in there until one day you have a clean bathroom and tub.

...stay with me:

When you have a baby, you don't even bathe her in the tub. You use the sink. Or you register for one of those little baby tubs that you never use because you still use the sink.

(*This is where my wife will say, "We used that tub all the time!" So if you bought it from our registry for us, Thank You!)

Then, after almost no time at all, you progress to the REAL tub and take tons of photos no one will ever see. Not because you don't want to embarrass your naked kid, but because YOU are embarrassed at the horrible looking caulk that surrounds the tub! You really should bleach it one of these weekends.

The early days of the tub are difficult. 

You have to hold the kid up the whole time, while you, the bathroom floor, and somehow the kitchen ceiling end up covered with more water than the baby!

But as the kid grows older, they begin to sit up on their own. And then all sorts of bath toys are introduced.

Soon you find that there are so many bath toys you're not even sure the kid is getting cleaned. You're just washing down toys for a half hour every night.

Then as more time goes by the child actually tells you the toys they want to bring into to the tub. Going so far as to request toys for her birthday with the sole purpose of taking them into the bath tub.

More time passes and you tell the child it's their responsibility to get the toys they want before the bath AND to remove them from the tub when the bath is over...preferably, dried.

You tell them this over and over and over, with varying degrees of success...mostly none.

Then more time goes by and you can now start the child's bath, but leave them to play. You return to dry them and "help" them clean the toys from the tub, which mostly consists of YOU cleaning the tub.

Even more time goes by and you now only have to turn the water on at a temperature, that after much trial and error, is deemed, "okay, I guess."

...and then you have to run back upstairs at Olympic speeds when the continuously water starts to pour through the kitchen ceiling.

More time. More advancements. She now can get out on her own and dry off. Sure you'll find a soaked towel on the floor when you go up at the end of the night, but you and the wife got to watch that episode of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and it only took you 4 days!

Still every morning there are somewhere between 10-15 dolls whose hair needs to be shaken out before you remove them from the tub to take a shower.

Some more time and you realize you're going through shampoo at a very quick rate, only to be told, "Oh, I needed it for my potions."

You've got so little hair left you figure, "Whatever."

Then, after what seems like six years of having the same argument over and over and over, you look in the tub...and it's completely clean. 

No dolls. No wet towels on the floor. No remaining "potions."

That's when you realize, process takes time and this pandemic WILL END! 

...but the caulk still looks like fucking shit.