Because I Said So?

Growing up I longed to shower in the morning so my permed curls would be fresh and bouncy, not mushed from sleeping. But with 5 of us to get ready and only one and a half bathrooms, my mother would not allow it. “Everyone WILL bathe at night” was her decree any time I brought it up. “Why would you want to go to bed dirty?” Mom didn’t like it when you brought up something again after she had rendered a final verdict.

I remember loving the freedom to shower whenever the hell I wanted to after I moved out. I mean, really, did anything wake you up better in the morning than a nice shower. I equated showering at night as something that old people did before they went to bed at 6 pm.

Fast forward 12 plus years.

Big Princess was the first to challenge my “I am the only one who gets to bathe in the morning” rule. So the numbers are down, only four to get ready in the morning, (actually only three as Big Daddy is at work when we get up in the morning) but still only one and a half bathrooms.

Much as my mother, I am Queen of my household and as such, I make the “who gets to shower when” rules. I wasn’t having it. Showering in the morning was mine, all mine. Big Princess looked for loopholes as she is prone to doing. “What if I got up earlier than you and got in and out before you get up?” Ahhh, hello? You get all the hot water and wake me up before my alarm goes off? I think not. Occasionally, for special events, I might relent but usually I was the only one allowed to shower in the morning.

Now fast forward another 5 years or so.

Now the numbers have vastly improved. Its just little princess and I getting ready in one and a half bathrooms. I had been doing a good job of hogging the full bathroom in the morning for almost two decades. Then maybe six months ago, I realized that my long, straight hair had grown so long that I was spending 30 minutes or more blowdrying it each morning and that was really drying my hair out too. So I decided to try washing my hair at night. This turned into a routine of showering every other day at night. When I realized how much time this saved in the morning and I could sleep in a half hour, it became even more routine for me to shower at night.

I knew the day would come. “Mom, can I shower in the morning?”

What’s my excuse now?