* Weena *

When you are a mother in charge of a family, every day is fraught with perilous dilemmas and burning questions that only you, through your amazing wit and marvelous ingenuity have the wisdom to solve. You, as a mother, are required to crack mysteries and solve riddles that are so tough, so astounding, and so mind boggling, they would catapult the even most exceptional detective mind into everlasting lunacy. No amateur mind could solve riddles such as these startling questions you face every day: How did your husband’s underwear get in the freezer? Who stuck the spaghetti all over the cat? What happened to the Thanksgiving turkey that was sitting on the table a minute ago? Son, If you didn’t go to the bathroom in the potty, where did you go to the bathroom? And last but not least, how in the world can you get ten children bathed, brushed, and ready for church in less than ten minutes? This was the burning question facing me during a visit to my sister-in-law’s house after we woke up late one Sunday morning.”What are we going to do?” screeched my sister-in-law, cracking her knuckles and pacing in front of the clock. “I’ve only got one bathroom.”My sister-in-law is your basic “nervous person”. This is unfortunate because I am allergic to nervous people. The allergic reaction I have doesn’t make me sneeze, it makes me suddenly calm, as if nothing in the world mattered, especially not being late for church. The more nervous my sister-in-law became, the slower my heart beat until I had to check my breathing to make sure I was still alive.

“Don’t worry,” I said with confidence. “I’ve got the perfect solution. Let’s do a cousin bath assembly line.”

Another reaction to nervous people is that I suddenly become even more brilliant at solving mysteries, and come up with insane solutions to their problems. This does not help to calm their nervous sensibilities.

“An assembly line?” she said in an agitated voice, biting her nails.

“Yeah. Ford Motor Company does it. Why can’t we?” I asked, serenely. I explained how we could set up a sort of “kid car wash” with her at one end of the bathtub and me at the other.

She frowned. “I don’t know. These are kids, not cars.”

“Peee-shaw!” said I, unruffled, “kids…cars, what’s the difference?”

I, being your basic devious person, decided to trick the six youngest children into the tub with a mountainous pile of bubbles. I knew it was going to be a tough sell when there was an earth shaking stampede and tornado of flying clothes on the way to the tub.

After the dust settled, and a volcano of bubbles erupted from the tub, we rolled up our sleeves and reached blindly through the suds in order to find the children. We soon learned what the difference was between cars and kids. For one thing, kids are not inanimate objects, to be “washed and waxed” at will.

“Hey, you,” I yelled to one of the four year olds, “Get back here, I want to soap behind your ears.” I was having trouble deciphering which kid was which after they had all donned bubble wigs and beards. All I could hear was a splash and a giggle as their soapy bodies slithered out of my grasp whenever I tried to catch one.

“Where’s the baby? I just had him,” cried my sister-in-law when she grabbed his foot and he shot across the tub.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got him,” yelled my four-year-old daughter, catching the flopping little fish of a boy. It was then that I noticed she still had all her clothes on.

“Hey, son, where are you going?” I asked my five-year-old.

“I’ve got to go to the bathroom,” he answered, drenching me with a tidal wave as he climbed out of the antique claw foot tub and over the top of my head in order to convey himself to the proper facilities. I tried to stand up in order to find a towel, and the next thing I knew, my head was underwater, bobbing for rubber duckies.

“Are you okay?” asked my sister-in-law in the fuzzy way you hear voices under the water.

I brought my head up and stared at her through a watery mist. “You might want to take the shampoo away from the kids. The floor is getting a tad slippery over here.”

“No!” yelled my daughter as I scrambled back up to my feet. “I’m washing Jenny’s hair.”

My sister-in-law and I looked at two-year-old Jenny. Her hair had been styled with fourteen shampoo spikes sticking out in all directions. She was yelling too, but instead of sound, huge bubbles emerged out of her open mouth. After that we couldn’t see much except a cyclone of arms and legs protruding from the bubble mountain which grew bigger and bigger from all the agitation of the water until it just about reached the ceiling.

“Okay, that’s it,” said my sister-in-law, her nervous disposition suddenly gone. “We need to take charge here.” She reached inside the monstrous mass of bubbles and marshaled the kids in a line, soaped all their nooks and crannies and handed them to me for shampooing.

At one point I found myself shampooing a turtle. “What’s this?” I cried.

“Swifty wanted a bath too,” replied two little eyes, blinking at me through a hole in the bubbles. “It gets dusty under the stereo speaker.”

I stared at my sister-in-law. “There’s a turtle living under your stereo speaker?”

She shrugged with an uncharacteristic nonchalance. “He’s happy there.”

In the face of her surprising tranquility my peaceful world began to crumble. I wondered if the five minute rule applied to creatures in bathtub. Anything in the water for less than five minutes couldn’t possibly have time to leave anything undesirable in the tub, right?

I looked at the changing color of the water next to my two-year-old son. Oops. I could be wrong about that. But luckily, there was no time to worry about that problem. My new calm partner and I had to move on to our next challenging question: How many bagels with cream cheese can you sneak into the front row of sacrament meeting without attracting too much attention to yourself? Answer: not many, if your husband catches you first. See? We moms can crack any riddle. We’re professionals.

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