My growing daughter, our bathroom and personal space

Is it a girls’ thing, or what? Pudd’ng likes going to the bathroom while clad in a towel and bathrobe.

“That is not necessary,” I have told her countless times, but she replies that she needs a bathrobe because it is cold in the bathroom.

This statement should have made me to read between the lines … or lie. But I chalked it to just another thing that little girls do, and men and fathers have absolutely no clue about. That is, until Tenderoni ambushed Pudd’ng in the bathroom two days ago, and made realise what the bathrobe was really for.  

Class act

As a little boy, if I did not want to take a shower, I would turn on the tap, then take deep loud breaths, while avoiding the water. I made sure that mama heard my loud breaths.

We lived in a city council flat in Jericho-Lumumba. To get to the bathroom, I had to pass through the living room and kitchen. If I saw mama in either of these rooms while I was on my way to the bedroom after taking a pretend shower, I would put on my class act. I would shiver and grit my teeth like I had just been pulled out of a freezer.

But mama either had sixth sense or my no-bathing game was down.

“There’s a spider on your back,” mama would say, and I would drop my guard. Then this class act of a mama would scratch my back, and the dryness would tell her that not a single drop of water had touched my body.

Unwritten bathroom rules

I give Pudd’ng as much personal space as possible. I always knock on her bedroom door before entering.

When it is one of those manic Mondays, and Pudd’ng is taking her sweet time in the bathroom, I do not go in, even if I am tempted to, but I shout at her to pick up her pace. Only Tenderoni has permission to go behind the bathroom door and, if need be, see what baby girl is up to. That’s the first unwritten rule.

The second unwritten rule states that – unless it is a matter of life and death – what happens in the bathroom stays in the bathroom. I mean, there are some issues that are best kept between girls, and I give my girls all the space.  

I think that it is only mothers who can break unwritten bathroom rules. Mama had no qualms bathing me, even if I protested that I was a big boy.

“A big boy doesn’t fear water,” she would hiss, as she poured cold water on my dry and ashy body.  

Sixth sense

Mothers have a sixth sense. They always know that something is up with their kids.

This morning, something tells Tenderoni to just enter the bathroom and check what Pudd’ng is doing. And that is when I knew what the robe was really for.

“What in the world is not happening here?” Tenderoni screams.

Water-drop silence

“How can you take a bath while you are wearing a bathrobe?”

I think that, generally, dads are slow. All this time, Pudd’ng was telling me the truth. That it was cold in the bathroom and she had to wear a bathrobe. If I had the sixth sense of a mother, I would have read between the lines.

This is the only time that what happened in the bathroom did not stay in the bathroom. Because? While in the living room, I could hear Tenderoni reading the riot act to the silent little thing in the bathrobe.