Tub Drain

This post is for posterity.  I need to remember this event.
Tonight was designated bath night for Mitch.  So after mapping out all of the events of the evening over Mexican chicken wraps and cleaning up the kitchen, I asked Brooke if she would fill the tub for Mitch.
I busied myself fixing a software issue of Tannis' while I listened to the tub fill up in the bathroom a floor above me.  After about 4 minutes, Brooke comes to me and says that the tub is filling really slowly and the water is coming out of the tap "like, this much", showing me her fingers in pinch mode about an inch apart.  Not knowing exactly how to convert that measure into fluid flow, I decide it is time to check it out.  I ask her to wait one sec while I finish up.

Mitch takes this as his cue to go upstairs and take matters into his own hands.  Brooke, feeling threatened by this, storms after him gargling his name as she does when she is mad at him.  I hear much stomping and frustrated words and some door closing and harumphing.  Time to inject some Dad into this situation.

So I go upstairs and take stock of the situation.  Mitch has been banished to his room by his sister who, for some reason, has locked herself in the bathroom and has worked herself into quite a lather.  I can hear her in there stomping around and opening and closing the cupboard doors.

I manage to make my way into the bathroom and am immediately confronted head-on by the seething ire of my once-shy little 9 year old daughter. "I don't have time for this!  Do I have to deal with YOU too?"

What? Isn't that what I'M supposed to be saying?

I calmly (honestly, you can ask her) tell her she needs to go to her room.  As she goes, I take stock of the situation...this time in text-based RPG style.

"You are in a bathroom.  There are 7 different kinds of bubble bath on the counter.  The tub is half full of cool water. The tap is still running.  There is a dirty 7 year old boy at the door, fully clothed.  You hear crying in a nearby room."

>Turn it off.

I don't understand.

>Turn off the water.

The water shuts off.

>Tell the boy to get undressed and get into the tub.

The water is too cold.

>Warm up the water

How would you like me to do that?

>Turn on the hot water tap

Hot water runs into the tub.

>Tell the boy to get into the tub and turn off the hot water when it is warm enough.

...etc.

So I go and calm the girl down by sitting in her room with her and speaking in calm monotone and playing Lego with her.  This eventually placates her to the point of reasonable normalcy.  After about 10 mins, I hear a sheepish "Dad?" from the bathroom.

I know what you are thinking.  You've been waiting for it ever since you read that I sent the girl up to fill the tub up with water.  My kids are alot of things, but they are not likely to sit in a tub and do nothing as it fills with water to the point of overflowing.  So you can just erase that image from your mind right now.

The image you DO need in your mind is that of a naked, semi-moist, 7 year old boy perched on the edge of the tub gargoyle-style with a look on his face I can only describe as fear.  Not red alert fear, but we are leaving yellow alert and crossing the line into orange.

"What's going on?"
"I don't wanna be in the tub anymore."
"Why not?" at the same time thinking, 'What's he got in his hand?'
"I found this in the drain.", he says, holding up a clump of Idon'tknowwhat.  I should explain that our tub has a "hidden" stopper.  You can still put fingers and toes into the strainer basket even with the stopper on.  It's not as if we have massive tufts of hair making their way out of the drain around the edges of the rubber stopper. 
I grab the offending thing, and dispatch it into the garbage. 
"IT WAS TICKLING MY FOOT!"
"Dude, relax.  It's no big deal it's just a little hair or something."
"And there's some sort of slippery lumps in the tub! What IS that?"
"Where?"
"I was sitting on them...there.  I could feel them with my BUTT!"
"It's just some soap or something." I rub my hand over the whatthehellisthats on the bottom of the tub.  Mini bath beads that weren't rinsed out properly.  I tell the boy this but he is not satisfied.
Starting to laugh, he says, "I'm.having.a.shower."
This gets us both laughing so hard we can barely function as I drain the tub and start the shower.
I love being a dad. 

Earn your right to complain..

This Saturday, after an enjoyable bike ride in Assiniboine Park, I went home and picked up my son so we could clean up some trash in our neighborhood.  There is a cache (Takin a Dip) near my house that is in an area that is covered in garbage.  The source of the trash is the City of Winnipeg property adjacent to it.  It seems that they have a couple of dumpsters on site, and have on occasion missed the dumpster when throwing out garbage.  I have written an e-mail to the city about that.  But that is not what I am stewing about today.

What irks me is the people who have either logged finds or DNF's on the cache have made a point of complaining about all of the garbage in the area, but have not done anything about cleaning it up.  One person went so far as to demand that the cache be moved, or arrange to have someone go and clean up the space.  OK.  If you wish to point out that there is garbage in the area, fine.  It is good advice for the next cachers.  But PICK SOMETHING UP.  Especially if you have kids with you.  These are the lessons that kids need to learn.  My kids will now pick up "safe" garbage even when we are not out caching.  Safe, meaning that it isn't broken glass, or anything like that.

We were only able to clean up about 2 big bags before we ran out of time.  And even though we didn't have the GPSr with us, Mitch managed to find the cache!  He is awesome.

Twitter

I'm on twitter (geolizardo).  I feel a little dirtier.  But I'm still not on Facebook...so that's something. 
Did you know that you can follow just about anybody on Twitter?  Now, whether or not you are following the ACTUAL person is anyones guess.  But I submit to you that it would be more interesting to follow a fake celebrity than an actual one.
I learned that nearly all celebrities from politicians to porn stars use Twitter to further their own agenda.