everyday life: winter bathing

Saying winter bathing and everyday is misleading. It's far less infrequent than that, but we won't go there at this point. I wanted to share HOW we manage getting the crew smelling flowery fresh on these cold days.

The issue is water supply. We have two 70-ish gallon water tanks on board. In the warm months we can refill these easily and endlessly from the hose on the dock. But the marina turns off the dock water in the winter to prevent pipes from bursting and so getting water to the boat is a cold, wet, tiring chore that involves miles of hose strung from a building up the hill... it's not fun. So we're even more careful than usual with our water consumption, which means no bathing on board. Also the wee corners of the boat (where the bathing happens to take place) are harder to heat, so it's not a pleasant prospect anyhow to be wet and cold.

So we trudge up to the marina showers. I wrote about this last year. But the trip has taken on a whole new dynamic with a wiggly wee baby in arms. The packing for the trip has doubled (how do babies do that - double your load when they are so small?), and my husband looks like he's heading off for a 2-day trip with all that stuff rather than a mere shower. Towels for all, shampoos and lotions and potions, clean clothes, diapers, wipes, whatever odds and ends Zach insists on bringing with to entertain himself.

It's a short walk on a balmy 30-something degree afternoon like this with no snow. And our marina recently remodeled their bath house so it's quite nice all around once you're there (marina bath houses in general when you travel can be sketchy, so we're grateful for this!)

Naia gets to go first. And we've come up with a very high tech way to accomodate the bathing needs of this little one... a plastic storage container from the hardware store.

We sometimes leave it near the bath house and sometimes bring it back to the boat depending on how full our arms are, hence the nifty label. She gets a nice little warm tubby of water to play around in, though not being able to sit up quite yet, she mostly gets floated around in it and held up gently. We are always sure to get her head and face wet often so she gets used to the sensation. Learning to swim is the one thing we're pretty hard core about in this family for obvious reasons. Zach started at 6 months (and was a very early swimmer) in earnest and so will Naia, but bath time is early swim conditioning if you will.

Daddy goes next while I get Naia ready with dipes and lotion and jammies and nursing. All the while Zach is keeping himself busy some way or another, last night he was shooting blowgun darts (bamboo skewers from a homeschool Native America craft class) at the vents in the shower room.

If Naia doesn't fall asleep nursing, I start in on the singing. The girl LOVES singing and will sing along (howling like a little critter) when anyone sings (we first discovered this when she was 2 months old at a birthday party when she went crazy during the birthday song). Her current favorite is ABBA. I sing Dancing Queen over and over again and she lights up and howls and giggles until she passes out. Party girl.

Then I get to shower while daddy holds Naia and then last Zach goes in. Lately he's insisted that he can fit in Naia's tub. All legs and practically bursting the thing in two, he folds himself in there.

By the time we all get dressed, clean whatever messes we've made in the shower room, pack up, and then walk back to the boat, it's been at least 90 minutes or so. The day is ending. The crew is tired and hungry. But we all smell better. And that's what counts.

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