Another day, another first for our little NICU babe. Tonight, at 38 days old, Bubba had his very first bath. He wasn’t sure about it at first, but as soon as he adjusted to being in the warm water, it was like this sense peace came over him, leaving him perfectly calm and content while ultra alert at the same time. We snuggled skin-to-skin afterwards as we do each night, and then it was time to tuck him in and say goodbye. Leaving at the end of the day is always the hardest part… Here’s hoping that it won’t be for much longer.
Tag Archives: bath time
Calming Bedtime Bath
Whether it’s been a long day, Miss G is amped up and bedtime is nearing, or I’m in need of a quick and easy “special bath“, this is a go to I count on regularly. It’s incredibly simple and fills the entire bathroom with the warm, tranquil combination of lavender and rosemary – perfect for calming our little lady before tucking her in at night.
Here’s what I use to put it together… Organic lavender essential oil, fresh rosemary, lavender flowers from the garden (or other dainty purple flowers if you’ve already depleted your lavender supply like I have) and a couple of drops of purple gel food colouring (yes, the not good for you conventional kind… if you know of an all-natural food colouring that works well, please let me know – I’m desperate to find one!)
While the warm water runs into the tub, I add 3 or 4 drops of the lavender essential oil and 2 drops of the purple food colouring to the stream. When the tub is nice and full, I break up the rosemary sprigs and sprinkle both them and the flowers on the surface. Miss G loves this bath and inevitably, I end up with a bouquet or two in the process.
And cleanup is just as easy. After removing my lovely-smelling babe from the tub, I quickly skim a strainer along the surface of the water to remove the plant pieces before draining the water. Done!
Then all that’s left is to read some bedtime stories and snuggle my little sleepyhead into bed for the night.
To see our equally calming lavender rosemary bath fizzies, click here.
♥
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Pool Party Bath
This was an on the fly idea that came about tonight during dinner. G was wearing her bathing suit (as you do when you’re 2 and a 1/2 and hanging out at home) and asked for a ‘special, special, soooooo special bath’ tonight. No go-to ideas came to mind, but my little doodle eating dinner in a ruffled polka dot bathing suit gave me one! … A pool party bath!
I filled the tub up nice and full and added a few drops of aqua gel food colouring to give it a pool feel, then collected a few pool/summer things – beach balls, a watering can, a pail and shovel, some water wings, and a water bottle. For extra fun, I loaded our little bubble machine up with solution and placed it so that the bubbles would flow down into the tub from up above. Gracen grabbed her sun glasses and her pool towel, and we were good to go.
Such a simple idea, but Grae just thought it was the best thing ever. Things did get a little wild when she began trying to pop every single bubble before they hit the water, but it was all good fun. Part way through, we took out our window crayons and added a ‘party wall’, which was just as much fun to splash off as it was to draw on. ☺
For more of our fun bath ideas, click here.
♥
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Spray Paint Bubble Bath
Gracen absolutely adores special baths. So much so, that tonight while eating dinner, she was already requesting something fun. “I want a really, really, reeeeeaaaally special bath tonight. Soooo special please, Mama.” I was drawing a bit of a blank at the time, so I turned to Pinterest for some inspiration and found this post by Growing a Jeweled Rose. Simple, fun, and I knew Grae would love it as it’s so similar to the snow spray painting activity we did this winter.
While we didn’t have liquid watercolours on hand, all I did was collect a few spray bottles, fill them up with a little warm water, and add a few drops of gel food colouring to each. I was going for vibrant colours, but if you want to ensure that the colours don’ stain your grout and child, you may opt for just one or two drops instead (or just avoid red/pink as it’s the only one that ever seems to stain!)
Then I filled up a big tub full of bubbly water using a bubble wand from Lush. Gracen started spraying the bubbles before even getting into the water, and the results were gorgeous – bright, colourful bubbles that had an airbrushed feel to them.
When ready, she hopped into the water and continued her masterpiece. The fun part was that as she moved around in the water, more white bubbles were uncovered, so there was always a great blank canvas to paint.
Simple spray paints were such a fun addition to the traditional bubble bath. And though I may have been a little over generous with the food colouring, the good news is that our grout is only slightly tinged pink – everything else washed off with a quick rinse with the shower head. ☺
For more of our fun bath ideas, click here.
♥
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Frog Pond Bath
One thing I love surprising Grae with is a fun, playful baths before bedtime. While sometimes that means simply giving her a little container of epsom salts to sprinkle into her tub or putting a couple of drops of food colouring into the water, and other times it means something a little more elaborate (some of our favourites are glow-in-the-dark baths, balloon baths, and ocean-themed baths). This one, inspired by a frog pond sensory bin I put together for a messy play date we hosted, converted her bathtub into a lovely frog habitat.
With the water tinted blue with a few drops of food colouring, I added in some blue and green flat glass beads we keep on hand for sensory play, as well as some {well washed} driftwood pieces collected from the beach.
Next, using a large sheet of green craft foam, I cut out several lily pads to float on the surface. While I kept some plain, I added water lily-ish faux flowers to others with a dab of hot glue.
The final addition was these cute stretchy frogs I found at the dollar store. While we have another set of harder ones, I particularly like these because they float and can be stuck to the bath tub walls and tiles.
Gracen absolutely adored this bath and had great fun seeing how many frogs she could balance on a lily pad at once.
After the bath was done, we simply scooped everything up and put it into an empty plastic bin to dry out. The best part is that next time we’re in need of a sensory bin, all we’ll have to do is add water!
♥
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{Birthday} Balloon Bath
This is ridiculously easy way to amp up the bath time fun, but it may just be Gracen’s favourite of all time. I wish I had a video of the shrieking, jumping, splashing, and balloon batting just to illustrate what a hit it was. Lucky for us, our tub has sliding glass doors, so the crazy was at least contained. ☺
I decided to try this tonight for Gracen’s half birthday, but it make a great regular birthday bath, and would be just as well received any day of the year I’m sure.
Just fill up the tub nice and full, add some bubbles and a bunch of balloons (I think 10 is a good number if you want it nice and full) and let the fun unfold.
♥
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Foamy Bathtub Paint
I’ve had this very easy bath activity on my list of to dos for a long while now, but I just never seem to come across shaving foam that doesn’t smell like a bottle of men’s cologne (is it just me or does putting your little lady to bed reeking like a can of Barbesol feel weird?)
But on our latest trip to the States, I came across this one… A shaving cream that smells like raspberries. While I’d prefer it to be all-natural and unscented if possible, beggars can’t be choosers, so I picked up a couple of bottles.
Tonight before bath time I gathered the shaving foam, some food colouring, a muffin tin, and a few paintbrushes, and we had foamy bathtub paint in no time!
To make the foamy paint I squeezed a few drops of food colouring into each muffin cup, filled them up with cream, and stirred them up using the paintbrushes. In hindsight, I should have put the cream in first and the food colouring on top as it would probably have been easier to mix, but it still turned out just fine.
In addition to making the paints, I squeezed a couple of drops of pink food colouring into the bath water… Miss G thought it was all pretty special.
The first order of duty was smelling them…
And then she dove right in. She did use the brushes too, but squishing the foam through her little fingers was too much fun not to try.
After all of the paints had been used up and the bath water was a deep shade of purple, we used our removable shower head to simply rinse the foam down the drain. While the clean up was very easy, the more vibrant colours did tint our white grout in a couple of places, so that’s something to be aware of. At the same time, we’ve stained our grout {a little bit} before and it’s just faded with time and eventually disappeared, so I’m not too worried about it. Especially because it’s all in the name of fun, right?
♥
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Gracen Sings
This may be a video only a mama can sit all the way through, but every minute seriously melts my heart. Especially around 4:35 when she attempts to convert her ‘3’ into a ‘2’. ☺
♥
Ocean Bath
Don’t ask me how I come up with these things… Tonight as I was running a bath for Miss G, I randomly decided to surprise her with a special themed bath. I basically gathered up a few things from our ocean and pond sensory bins, added a couple of drops of blue food colouring, and that was it.
Gracen was super excited when I dramatically flung open the shower curtain to reveal her surprise bath and immediately jumped in.
I was a little bit worried about her sitting on the hard items by accident, but she automatically cleared them out of the way as soon as she climbed in without me having to say a thing.
Two things to keep in mind when converting your bath tub into a mini ocean… Make sure the ocean items are washed in warm soapy water first (duh!) and try to pick rocks and shells that are smooth so that no little tushies are poked during the fun.
The huge part of the fun of course is swimming around in the tub with sharks and whales and crocodiles… We got these little sea creatures at the dollar store quite a while ago, but you can find them at toy stores and teacher stores too.
Glow-in-the-Dark Bubble Bath
Tonight, to celebrate the end of a lovely Halloween, we put together one of our old favourites – a glow-in-the-dark bubble bath.
A handful of glow sticks and a chunk of Lush’s Calacus jelly run under warm water, and we had a colourful, bubbly, glowing bath.
And since Grae’s been carrying around these little ghost candles for the last week, we decided that tonight would be the perfect time to put them to use.
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Two Ingredient Bath Tub Paint
Tonight Gracen and I whipped up some insanely easy “paint” to amp up this evening’s bath time fun. The best news? It only contains two ingredients.
Before getting started, we rounded up a few things… Dr. Bronner’s Pure Castile Liquid Soap (ours is almond scented), some traditional liquid food colouring, a couple of paintbrushes, and some paint containers.
With our materials gathered, we got started by pouring some of our liquid soap into our containers.
Next, Gracen squeezed a few drops of food colouring into each.
And gently stirred the colour into the soap.
That’s it! Less than two minutes later and we were ready for bath time.
Once in the tub, Gracen happily painted the tiles with “numbers” and “zigzags” using her homemade paint. It was a messy, drippy, bubbly good time.
Another perk? We ended up with a blue and purple bubbly tub full of water.
And a squeaky clean toddler who smelled deliciously of almond.
When it came time for bed, we took the shower head down, gave the tiles a rinse, and watched all of our designs melt down the drain with almost no effort. I must admit, our white grout is tinted slightly pink and blue in a few places, but meh – it will fade with time. All in the name of good fun. ☺
Two Ingredient Bath Tub Paint
- 4 tablespoons of Dr. Bronner’s pure castile liquid soap
- 3 – 5 drops of liquid food colouring
Measure out soap. Add food colouring. Stir.
Have fun!
♥
An Afternoon at LUSH
This afternoon, Gracen and I had the absolute pleasure of attending a launch event at the Robson Street location of Lush Fresh Handmade Cosmetics.
When we first got the invite, I was really excited for two reasons. First off, because I’ve been a longtime Lush fan and seeing, touching, and trying a brand new product before the general public is always fun, and second, because the event was munchkin-friendly and Gracen was more than welcome to come along!
When we arrived, the Lush team was extremely helpful, sweet, and friendly. They helped us find a spot to park our stroller, offered us all kinds of delicious treats and beverages, and invited Gracen to play with the newest Lush innovation, ‘Fun’. Of course she had already spotted the play table on the way in and was more than ready to sink her little hands into the mouldable material.
As she played, I learned all about Fun. What it is basically, is a mouldable {delicious smelling} soap that can be used in four different ways. First off (and most importantly ☺), it can be played with. It has a texture between play dough and plastercine and can easily be cut, shaped, and rolled. The best part is that since it’s a soap, clean up is a breeze – both when it comes to cleaning your table and cleaning your kid. When used in the bathroom, it can be rubbed and used as a soap (we’ve already used it at the sink for washing hands and in the bathtub as a body bar), lathered and used as a shampoo, or placed under some running water as a bubble bath. So cool, right? I’m pretty sure some pre-bath time “play dough” sessions are in our very near future…
After playing with Fun for a good, long time, Miss G decided it would be a good time to have her face painted. Having seen {and immediately fallen in love with} a stack of pumpkin-shaped soap on the way by, a little jack-o-lantern on her cheek it was.
With a freshly-painted cheek, it was off to explore the rest of the store. There were all kinds of goodies out and Gracen very happily chose a bag of popcorn to munch on while I helped myself to a little bag of goodies at the candy bar. We explored the products, learning about them and trying them out along the way, which was a lot of fun. These were two of our favourites. I really loved the slightly shimmery Bubblebeard bubble wand because it made incredible bubbles with just small swishes in a bowlful of water, and Grae really loved the Calacas shower jelly, mostly because it was really fun to poke and squish.
We stopped to see a few other things, mingle with some other mamas and kiddos, and snack on our goodies, but more than anything, Grae wanted to get back to the Fun table to play.
Before heading home for dinner, bath, and bed time, we got to watch a fresh batch of Fun being made, and then play with it immediately afterwards. When fresh made like this, Fun is still pretty soft and sticky compared to the finished product, but Gracen didn’t mind one bit. It made for a great mess and lots of fun swishing it all of in a bowl of warm water afterwards.
To top off a fun-filled afternoon, Lush very generously sent us home with a bag full of goodies that Grae immediately called her ‘present’ and insisted on carrying on her own despite the fact that it was heavy and bulky.
When we got home and opened it, she was thrilled to find several rolls of Fun inside, but even more thrilled to see a Jacko bath fizzer. We chopped him up to spread the excitement up over a few nights, and before long, our pumpkin pie scented little lady was tucked into bed.
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Best Bath Toys Ever
These foam face shapes are meant to go on the bath tub walls, but Gracen thinks putting them on her face and having me take photos for her to look at is just as hilarious. I must say, I agree.
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iPhoneography // Bath Time at Manmaw’s
Gracen’s always loved the bath, but I’ve never seen her beg for bath time the way she has these last few days…
Grandmas always have the best toys.
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Taken with Instagram. Find me under jkossowan.
iPhoneography // Afternoon Snapshots
Today was a work day for this mama… And although I really do like the the teaching part, I sure do miss my little lady while I’m away. Luckily, a classroom of 25 to 30 students keeps me more than busy for most of the day, but some days I just wish I could snap my fingers, avoid the {sometimes slow / stressful} commute, and arrive at home to soak up more moments like these…
mini cleanaholic // rolling machine
making cookies // chocolate play dough chocolates
bath time mohawk // bedtime stories with baby
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