As a mother of 3, I consider the bath/shower to be a sacred place where I can get 4 seconds of peace and quiet. My kids do not share my vision, however, and no matter how hard I try, they find “loving” ways to interrupt me.

“Mom, I don’t want you to be lonely, so I’ll sit in here with you.” “Mom, are you almost done because I want to play a game with you?” ”I go potty” (followed by the dumping of something non-flushable down the toilet – the baby has recently joined in on the fun).

Needless to say, my peaceful moments don’t last for long and my kids could care less.

My oldest son recently decided that he was old enough to start taking showers rather than baths. He is apparently grown. Fantastic! That’s one less kid I have to sit and supervise so they don’t accidentally drown (actually, I have no concerns about that with him as he is 6 and knows not to lie face down in the 6 inches of water but my husband seems to think our tub is a pool so we continue to act as lifeguards).

Once I showed him how to work the shower properly, I was excited to leave him to his little adventure in the peaceful waterfall while I had dreams of being able to accomplish other things like washing dishes and changing diapers; you know, the important things in life. This was not to be. As soon as he closed the curtain, I turned to walk out the door to ensure that he enjoyed the bliss of shower time, but he started singing and laughing and calling out to me to come and “have a conversation” with him so that I could hear how cool he sounded.

Now, having been at home with him all day, I didn’t really have much left to talk about so I sighed and started just throwing out some random topics like world peace to see what he would like to discuss during this “fun time” in the shower. He wasn’t interested in world peace or allowing me to respect his shower time from the kitchen, but he was interested in torturing, um, I mean blessing me with his renditions of Justin Bieber songs and other various annoying songs from the radio. It was a most enjoyable time.

The next night, I had barely gotten the words “go get your pjs and underwear” out of my mouth when he was hauling butt upstairs and screaming, “IT’S SHOWER TIME!” Wow. Who knew he would be even more excited than me about shower time?! No complaining or asking for 5 more minutes to play?! I’ll take it - as long as I am not required to listen to more Justin Bieber! ("I was like BABY, BABY, BABY NNNNOOOHHHH" - feeling the migraine coming on)

It’s always so funny to learn what kids think is an exciting step in the path to grownupdom and apparently, the ability to cleanse oneself in the jet-stream from above is a huge one. He is now asking to take showers in the morning like a true adult, but we’ll see about that later….after mommy has some coffee…and a peaceful, Justin Bieber-less bath.