Ode to my bain

Today got off to a really slow start once again. Every time that I start to wonder how other people get so much stuff done, I remind myself that other people are generally fed, bathed, and dressed before noon. I'm a disaster although whenever B runs a bath for me, I am doomed. How can you rush through a bath? Its just not possible.
I probably have pretty simple tastes, as far as the real bathing afficionados are concerned. I like a really big deep bath, which I managed to squeeze into our bizarre little bathroom space after HOURS of brainstorming and sketching (thank god I didn't have any real work when I was at Paribas or this post may never have come to be.) I like using bath salts instead of bubbles, especially Kneipp Lavendar Bath Salts although why oh why do they have to turn the water highlighter pen yellow? I feel like I'm stepping into a pit of nuclear reactor run-off water when the steam is rising off the surface of a glowing yellow bath. I've tried other brands and, for the price, this is the best thing you can buy, so I stick with it.
I don't use soap on my skin since everything irritates me- what luck that Ella has inherited this trait. Now I have cabinets full of special dermo-pediatric soaps for her, that I suppose I could try out, but I just don't see the point. Its not like I dig ditches for a living. I'll stick to water and an all-over scrub with a loofah. This last part is the most time-consuming but if I don't really scrub the dead skin off my legs, when I get them waxed, its like being fileted and they end up just ripping off the skin. I learned that lesson very very quickly.
And then if I have a cup of coffee and a new magazine, there is no way that I can finish up in less than 40 minutes.
Of course, once Ella could walk, my lovely lazy mornings seemed like they would become a distant memory. Since I couldn't trust her to run loose in the other room (although sometimes a Baby Einstein video would keep her occupied for a quick 20 minute soak) I generally had to shut her in the bathroom with me. That always made for a very relaxing bath... But, I think that Ella has become used to this lazy routine and she has adapted her own little morning ritual. Now there is hardly any sense in changing. In fact, after an amazing developmental leap that occured this morning, I may have to take more baths.
As Ella is very much a girly girl, she actually doesn't mind spending time going through all the treasures I have stashed away. I have one box in the bathroom that is full of sample lotions that I have gotten after going for a facial, or when I buy products. She LOVES playing with these. Occasionally she gets the cap off and squirts everything out but since they are just samples, the damage is limited. She sits and goes through the box of lotions and when she gets bored with that, spends some time dropping them in the water with me. Lately she has become very much attached to my Emergency Home Waxing Kit, so much so that today she actually put it in her stroller to take with her to school. She takes the pot of hardened wax and stirs it with the little wooden paddle and then comes over to me (particularly when I am doing my yoga and she knows that I won't be moving around) and wipes it on... areas that one would wax in an emergency. (To be honest, I have a real fear that this is going to be one of those random memories that sticks with her into adulthood. Waxing is pretty traumatic to me, and I have had years to try and get my head around the logic of paying a stranger to pour hot wax on my most delicate bits and then rip it off, provoking the closest pain I know to childbirth. Poor kid hasn't got a chance.) If she gets really bored she starts running in and out of the room, leaving the door open which means that I have to try and hunker down as low as possible in the water to avoid the draft. Except for today, when the door was wide-open and the recent cold snap meant that the draft was more like a wall of cold air, she actually shut the door when I asked her to. Only took 20 months but she finally proved her intelligence. I would rather have this than her singing her ABC's, just for anyone out there who wants to prove how much smarter their kid is.
But it gets better- then the phone rang. She looked at me and I said, "Go and get maman the phone! Quick!" She loves the phone, as all babies do I suppose, and so she dashed out to grab it, amazed that I was telling her to touch the phone rather than shouting at her to put it back. She came toddling back in as fast as her short little legs would carry her and proudly handed me the phone, while I lounged in the water. My very own be-diapered butler. How fantastic.