Lather, Rinse, Repeat

Last night I sent my 7 year old son to take a shower.

Which he did.  For approximately a minute and a half. 

That would be roughly 24 minutes less than I spend in the shower.  I immediately stuck my head into the bathroom and asked him what was wrong.

He was already out of the shower and wrapped up in a towel, wet hair plastered to his head and dripping all over the bathroom floor.

"I'm done," he said.  Duh.

"Done?  Already?"

"Uh-huh."

"You washed your hair?"

"Uh-huh."

"And your body?"

"Uh-huh."

"Your whole body?"

"Uh-huh."

"With SOAP?"

This was apparently his breaking point because he yelled, "Yes!" in that tone that says, "Jesus Christ, woman, enough with the inquisition already!"  He may or may not have rolled his eyes, which normally would make me crazy but I was too tired to deal and wanted to hurry up to the part of bedtime that actually involves sleep, so we'll say that he did not roll his eyes.

(even though he totally did)

The idea that someone can adequately clean his entire body AND wash his hair in less time than it takes me to decide what I want on my pizza was baffling to me.  Until I compared our routines.

Here's how the 7 year old showers:

1)Wash hair with shampoo.  Rinse.
2)Wash body with soap.  Rinse.

Here's how MY shower goes:

1)Shampoo hair.  While shampoo does it's thing, shave one leg. 

2)Thoroughly rinse shampoo.  Thoroughly rinse leg.  Start singing.

3)Shampoo again (this would be the 'repeat' phase of the lather-rinse-repeat cycle).  Shave other leg.

4)Thoroughly rinse shampoo.  Thoroughly rinse leg.  Think about how awesome my voice sounds in my shower. 

5)Apply conditioner.***

***I feel it necessary to point out here that one is supposed to leave conditioner on for a bit so that it can properly condition.  This is the difference between easily being able to brush out my hair vs. spending twenty minutes trying to extricate said brush from aforementioned hair. 

In other words, this block of time is definitely not my fault.  IT SAYS SO ON THE BOTTLE.

6)While conditioner is conditioning, wash body with soap.  Shave some more (sorry, Paula Cole and Julia Roberts, I don't endorse your hairy-pit tendencies).

7)Rinse conditioner from hair.  (This takes a while.  You really don't want to do a half-ass job here, or else you're going to need to do this all again in about six hours because your hair will be greasy and gross.)  Forget what step I'm on, pick up shampoo, then realize my legs are both smooth, meaning I've already shaved them and therefore shampooed.  Congratulate myself on my awesome deductive reasoning skills and consider a career as a detective.

8)Wash body with yummy smelling body wash and poufy thingy.  Pretend not to hear sons yelling at each other on other side of bathroom door.

9)Wash face with facial scrub infused with small shards of glass (this is called exfoliation).

10)Rinse hair again to be really, REALLY sure all conditioner is out of hair.  Stand under hot water for two more minutes and analyze last night's dream.  Turn water off when son starts banging on door.  Grab towel quickly.

I should be glad that I have sons instead of daughters.  So long as he's clean, I can get behind this whole 2 minute shower business.

Because it leaves me with all the hot water.