Allergic to Soap

We have a ritual in our household. Every day, starting around the same time in late afternoon, the kidlets get showers, put on their pajamas, and relax and play while I am making dinner. There are some deviations from this daily ritual. Some days, unless we're in allergy season, Pig Jr. can skip the shower part because he's a kidlet who detests being dirty and never voluntarily plays with anything that might potentially get him sticky, dirty, or even remotely contaminated by whatever it is. On days when I take the girls to the library after dinner, they don another set of clothing instead of their pajamas. Other nights, the younger two have to skip a shower, and Horse gets cleaned up after dinner instead. Last night was not in any way, shape, or form a deviation from our normally established routine.

Because Pig Jr. is still just four years old, and a sensory kidlet, he requires help with the shower routine. The parent in charge must turn on the water, get out his washcloth, soap up said washcloth, put shampoo on his head once he is done cleaning his body, and help him rinse out his hair. The rest of it he handles himself, albeit grudgingly. This is a kidlet who doesn't like being wet, can't stand the feel of soap or shampoo, and has further issues with water if it is not exactly the desired temperature.

When I put the soap on his washcloth yesterday afternoon, I made the mental note to replace the bar after the next shower because the last child to shower would surely not have enough soap left to work up any sized lather, let alone a good one. There really was only enough soap left for one more person to get clean, but I did not want to put out a new bar or the old one would just sit there indefinitely while the new one would be used. After that momentary brain wave, I forgot all about it.

That is to say, I forgot about it until I got my own shower this morning and discovered the same exact size bar of soap that I had handed back to Pig Jr. to put on the soap dish. Wait, what? A family meeting was in order.

Both girls insisted they washed with soap yesterday. They both stared up at me with a look of martyrdom in their woeful eyes while declaring their innocence in neglecting proper showering techniques. When I informed them that soap gets smaller with use and the soap had been the same exact size that it was when Pig Jr. was done with his shower, the look of guilt slowly spread across their faces.

The best I could get out of both of them was that they simply "forgot" to use soap. How on earth do a nine-year-old and a six-year-old each spend twenty to thirty minutes in the bathroom, with the water running for at least ten to fifteen minutes per kidlet, and never remember the main reason they are there?

My kidlets must be allergic to soap. Either that or their shampoo, which they both claimed to remember to use, must make them forgetful.