Hello my little blog visitors.  Did you miss me?

You didn’t even notice I was gone, did you?  {sniff, sniff}

When I restarted the ol’ blog up, I told myself “Self, you need to post regularly.” and then last week I had a trip and was out of town all week long and so busy, what with all the eating of Oreos and the business dinners and talking (so much talking!).  When I would get to my hotel room late in the evening, I would simply fall, exhausted, into the not-my-bed, and lay my head on the not-my-pillow and pass out before I could even write anything in my head much less on my blog.

It was a long week.

I’m home now, though.  I’d like to think you missed me so please do just keep it to yourself if you didn’t notice I was gone.  (Linda who?  I vaguely remember her…)

Saturday morning came early and we all trekked off to our morning of Family Fitness Fun at the YMCA.  We came home afterward to grab lunch and then the little ones had a basketball game.  I was tired and sore and the house was a bit of a mess and, well, I was crabby.

Dr. Jekyll’s alter-ego is alive and well and living in St. Louis.

You, my internet friends, are all probably sitting there with your jaws hanging open.  “Our sweet Linda?  Crabby?  I can hardly believe it!  She’s all sunshine and light!  She brings the funny, she’s so upbeat!  Surely you are confused – it must be some other Linda to whom you refer.”

But no.  It’s true – I get crabby.  If my husband kept a blog, you’d probably be shocked.  “Leave her!  She’s so awful to you!  No self-respecting human should put up with that!”  Of course, he’d probably be exaggerating and I’d be all “Oh, you have NO IDEA what I put up with here!!!  Shut-up!”  (See?  C-R-A-B-B-Y.)

My husband and I have a sort of secret agreement about this situation.  He tries to smile and pretend he doesn’t notice hoping it will all blow over.

When it gets bad, real bad, then in the middle of the day on a Saturday, I might say “I’m going to take a hot bath.”

This is the universal signal for “Here’s our chance to make an escape!”  Sometimes, with a look of unadulterated fear on his face, he will rally the kids “Come on, guys… let’s go pick up trash along the side of the highway or something – give your mom some alone time.”  I pretend not to notice as he packs toothbrushes and clean underwear just in case they have to spend the night somewhere.

I appreciate this about him.

I go up to the sanctuary of my bathroom.

Ahhhhhhhhhh……..

I get out all sorts of goop and formulas and put them on the edge of the tub.  I run a bath – a hot, hot bath.  A scald-your-skin bath.  I get my book.

I lock the door.

For the next two hours, I bathe.  This is radical bathing – it’s not for sissies.  In the end, I’m smooth and relaxed and everyone is allowed to live (which is the important thing, right?)

This Bath & Bodyworks issue has me annoyed.  I love several of their scents – I love Japanese Cherry Blossom, and Black Amethyst, and  Moonlight Path, and Velvet Tuberose.  So over time, I have accumulated some products in each of these various scents.  I have some bubble bath and some body scrub and some shampoo and conditioner and some moisturizing body wash and some lotions and potions and such.  I don’t, however, have all of those items across the board in one scent.

So I step into a bath with Velvet Tuberose bubble bath and I use Japanese Cherry Blossom body scrub and Black Amethyst body wash and Moonlight Path shampoo, and… well, you get the idea.

When I step out of the bathroom at the end of this, I smell like a indecisive madame at the Bath & Bodyworks Brothel.  (I wonder how much that job would pay?  I think I have all the qualifications… Hmmmm…)

Sometimes, when circumstances are such that Bill and the kids cannot make a quick escape while I am stewing in my own crabby juices, they will remain in the house while I bathe.  I can sometimes hear them moving around down there, and I imagine what is going on.  “Quick – shove all those toys in this closet.  Bake some double chocolate brownies.  Someone find the Legends of the Fall DVD.  If we all pull together, I think we might be allowed to live.”  (And, really, that’s the important thing, right?)

I do hear them all scrambling to clean up and I deeply appreciate this.  When I sink down under the bath water (which is only scalding hot in Phase 1 and is much cooler in Phase 2 after I drain part of the water and add cold water) where my ears are under water, I love hearing them clean up down there.  I am a sailor in a submarine heading home and they are my welcoming committee making sure everything is perfect for my arrival.  I have the best welcoming committee in the whole world!  Too bad the stress and anxiety of it is causing them hair loss and skin rashes and nervous ticks.  Poor things.

So after the face mask and the shaving of legs and other areas that were not meant to have any hair (big toes?  REALLY?) and the hot water and the cooler water and then the shower…

Oh.  Why, yes – yes, I do take a shower at the end of my bath.  Do you have an issue with this?  I realize my “when mama ain’t happy” bath routine uses enough water to put out the wildfires in California or end the drought in Fuji (aside: you probably didn’t even realize they HAD a drought in Fiji, did you?  Oh, the things I learn from Google…) but I don’t care.  I DON’T CARE AND ALL YOU TREE HUGGERS CAN SUCK IT BECAUSE I’M NOT GIVING UP MY GALLONS AND GALLONS OF LOVELY WATER FOR MY MENTAL-HEALTH-BATHATHON.

I may use a lot of water, but it’s still cheaper to society than having you support me in a women’s medium-security prison for years.  Plus, I hear Bath & Bodyworks Brothel madames don’t fare well in prison.

Really, it’s water well spent.  The use of this water saves lives.

So, anyway… what was the point of this post?

Oh, yeah.  I took a bath yesterday.  Everything’s fine now.  I even saw one of the kids smile, cautiously.  It was so cute.  I hugged her and she breathed a sigh of relief and told her sisters “It’s safe now, you can come out.”

Motherhood is so rewarding.