You know those rubber bath toys with holes? The ones that
shoot water when you squeeze them? I believe they started with a duck that
spits water, and now there’s a whole empire of other squeeze toys, mostly
aquatic-themed. There are squirting boats, spitting pirates, spouting octopi…
My kids love these.
Not to be a bath time Scrooge, but I’m growing to despise
them.
Because if you don’t squirt all the water out after each
bath, they’ll eventually get moldy inside. One day, when you least expect it,
your just-cleaned-almost-two-year-old will squeeze her rubber fishie and gross
black stuff will come out all over her freshly shampooed head (or worse, go in
her mouth).
I suppose if you have one or two, it’s not a big deal to
clean all the water out each time you use them. But:
A) Who wants yet another chore at the end of bath time? and
B) They’re usually sold in packs (You don’t just get the
pirate, you get his moldy ship, his moldy parrot, his moldy first mate…)
So we have a few options here:
1) Be the kind of parents who spend
their evenings squeezing out water from multiple bath toys.
2) Throw the bath toys out every month
or so.
3) Don’t use them at all.
Since I’m just never
going to be #1, and I refuse to give up something that’s going to lure my kids
into the bathtub (#3), I have to choose #2. But here’s what I’m thinking: I’ll
buy them in bulk, but only use a couple at a time, and cycle through them. The
unused ones will reside in the secret stash of toys in my closet. (We all have
a secret stash, right? Oh, that’s for another blog post…)
Here's to many a clean
and happy bath time!
