Bathtime directions for twins

All inside on a rainy day? Might as well take a bath.

Bathtime is always wild at our house.

Ask our twin girls if they want a bath, and that engenders excited shrieking and running around. Your first task is to catch two giggling running-away two-year-olds and corral them into the bathroom.

Then try to get their clothes off while running the water into the bath. Stop them from hurling themselves headfirst into the bath with all their clothes and dirty diapers on. Keep one hand on each baby or this is inevitable. Remember to stop the water before it gets too deep or they will be very upset when they go headfirst into the water.

Then when the water is a few inches deep, and two babies are successfully undressed, put them both in the bath. They will stand up and fall down several times. This is normal. Try to keep Catherine from using Elisabeth's hair as a hand-hold while she stands up. Elisabeth tends to resent that.

They will also take all the shampoos and conditioners and dump them in the water, along with the two rubber ducks, the wind-up duck, the wind-up fish, and the wind-up frog. Their favorite toy, however, is the plastic cup. They will fill it and practice drinking from a cup several times. Needless to say, they can't properly drink from a cup, and the water mostly pours down their little naked fronts. Hilarity ensues. Prevent them from pouring the cup contents outside the tub. Intervene when the inevitable cup tug-of-war battle develops. If you have the slightest opportunity, grab the cup from them, wet down their hair, and soap up their hair.

Then we proceed to swim practice. They each lie down in the tub on their front and practice kicking. Most often Catherine kicks in Elisabeth's face, which Elisabeth tends to dislike. Try to get them lying down in parallel.

Then Elisabeth will practice rolling on her side, pretend-sleeping, and will see if she can put half her face in the water. Try to keep Catherine from drowning her as she does this.

After a while the girls are wrinkled and waterlogged and the water is getting cold. Open the drain and listen to their plaintive little cries of "Bye-bye wawa. Bye-bye wawa." Be ruthless.

One by one you must catch them with the towel, pull them out of the cold bathtub, and attempt to towel them off and get them into a clean diaper. Usually this is done simultaneously with a kicking screaming tantrum because they don't want to leave the bathtub. Steel your heart against their cries. Try not to let them run out the door without their diapers, because bad things happen when they run around without diapers.

If you're really lucky, you can catch them again and wrestle clothes on them. And then if you're extraordinarily super-lucky, when you put them into their cribs they will actually take a nap. That is your cue to also collapse in bed, exhausted.

Nap fast. You're going to need all your energy when they wake up.

PS: Don't forget to mop the bathroom floor. The tile is already coming up....