No, not the bubbles. Anything but the bubbles!!!

It was a pleasant evening in Southern California. The sky was greying with future rain clouds and the Kopp family had just finished a Christmas shopping run. The girls had eaten their dinner and everyone was happily playing, and that's when they attacked. ... bubbles! Dun, Dun, Duuuuuuuun.

I don't know what my problem is. I have visions of my children in bubble baths and I can't seem to let the idea go. I've got bath time pictures of my childhood; big grins and foamy beards; and I can't help but want the same enjoyment for my children. But as much as they like bubbles floating through the sky, you better keep those damn bubbles out of their bathtub. I'd tried to slip some in last week and everyone freaked out on me. I thought at the time it was because they were already in clear water and suddenly they couldn't see their toes any more and this bothered them. So last night I put the bubble bath in while the water was running so the bubbles would be there to start with. ... nope. We have a bath time ritual of throwing all of our tub toys in to the water before I throw them in, which the girls have a blast doing. Last night they just peeked reluctantly over the edge of the tub at the soupy mess below and I had to put the toys in for them. This should have been the first sign. As I went to put them in afterwards (first Genevieve and then Arianna) they started screaming bloody murder as soon as their toes slipped below the frothy surface. It was like the shower scene from Psycho in duplicate. ... with more bubbles (good call on the chocolate syrup blood Hitchcock; in our scene the bubbles everywhere made it hard to take the screaming seriously and the last thing you want is Norman Bates giggling as he brings his knife down). Momma abandoned her attempt at wrapping presents and enjoying a glass of wine and quickly pulled the plug to send those bubbles back to hell. But now we've got two wet, screamy, foamy babies and it's too much work to try and refill the tub and start over at this point. So I get the mati (evil eye) from Momma as she has to now jump in and shower with each one individually while I hold the other naked baby and hope not to get peed on. Even though the bubbles were gone, the night was shot. Everyone was in grumpy moods from then on and they all blamed Daddy for it. No one wanted me to hold them or dress them or even look at them the wrong way (except Momma, she would laugh every time I muttered "damn bubbles" to myself like a crazy person). So we learned a valuable lesson last night: bubbles floating by in the air, good. Johnson and Johnson Bedtime Bubble Bath "to soothe your child before bedtime", bad. Very, very bad.