Save Water: Bath with the baby

Tonight I shared a bath with Phoebe and an army of dead ants.

I spent the entire time trying to recover little ant bodies with Phoebe's bath toys, less out of respect for the dead than me not wanting to wash my hair in a tub of floating insects. This wasn't as easy as it sounds due to the fact that baby bath toys tend to have holes in them so that baby can watch water falling through them. Evidently, this is something babies find fascinating as they try to grab the water over and over again. This draining property was the main reason I thought using her toys would be a good idea. The water could drain out of the vessel, leaving the ant body behind. However, these particular ants were very tiny and slipped straight through the holes back into the bath. I would not like to go to war against an army of ants; even in death they are excellent escape artists.

Eventually I developed the following method of body removal: firstly, I used the Funny Purple Hippo Thing to scoop up the ant. Then I tilted it this way and that so that water would run out of one hole without the ant falling through. It was a bit like one of those plastic puzzles where you have to get the silver ball through the maze without letting it fall through the holes. Once the water was pretty much drained from the Funny Purple Hippo Thing, I gave it a good whack into the Big Green Number 10 Stacking Cup so that the wet ant would fall into the cup. I then used the Funny Purple Hippo Thing to scoop up the next ant.

It was an arduous process and took a very long time but I entertained myself by singing "Dead ant, dead ant, dead ant, dead ant, dead ant, dead ant, dead ant" to The Pink Panther Theme tune. Meanwhile, the survivors of the Great Tiny Ant Drowning Disaster patrolled the perimeter of the bath, looking forlornly into the tub at their lost mates, which was bloody brave of them in my opinion. I think I managed to scoop out about 13 ants using this technique. I had to keep emptying the cup down the sink as ants kept escaping back into the bath, which was darn annoying.

Meanwhile, Phoebe danced around the edge of the bath whirling the wet face cloth around her head, living up to her recently earned nickname, Cyclone Phoebe.