45 Minutes Before the Wedding

I’ve been wandering around Las Vegas with my sister for six hours in over 100 degree heat. I have 45 minutes to get ready for the wedding and I have 16 month old JJ who has not had a nap. Fortunately JJ has discovered the white tiled bathroom, bigger than any bedroom I’ve ever had, is a great place to hang out and screech. Thus figuring he would be entertained, I step into the shower, keeping an eye on him through the clear glass door. While I wash my hair, his screams echo off the walls. Then silence. He has disappeared from my sight. So I do a rush rinse job and slip across the cold white tile. JJ is amusing himself in the little room where the toilet resides. He’s tearing toilet paper into tiny bits and dropping bits piece by piece into the toilet. He has also managed to wash his hands in there plus he’s tugging at his diapers, his signal that they are full of poop.

I decide the best option would be to put JJ in the bathtub. No sooner is he in there, when the phone rings. No problem. This bathroom happens to have a phone in it. The call is the anxious bridesmaid asking for help zipping up the brides dress. I politely explain my situation and suggest she call the bride’s mother.

While I’m drying my hair, JJ learns how to turn on the faucet. I toss in a couple of paper coffee cups to distract him. This works long enough to finish drying my hair and apply one half of my face. Now I toss in the plastic soap dish figuring that would be good for a few extra minutes.

Not wanting to wear nylons in the Las Vegas heat and seeing that JJ is still entertained, I figure this would be a good opportunity to try out a new product I recently discovered - spray on nylons. So I step back in the shower stall. While keeping an eye on JJ, I evenly spray both legs, up and down, all around. Hmmm, looks good but perhaps a bit more would look better. So I spray again.

JJ has had enough of the bathtub now and is dumping soggy coffee cups of water all over the floor. His shriveled fingers indicate that he’s had plenty of time in the bathtub. As I wrap him in his towel, I notice my nude-beige footprints across the white tile. I utter a bemused “oh oh” which happens to be JJ’s favorite expression these days which triggers him to dance around the bathroom screeching “oh oh” at the top of his lungs. Now we have little footprints marching all over the big ones.

I get down on my shiny, polished knees with a fluffy white washcloth and try to clean up the mess. JJ, being the imitator that he is, does the same. I end up with two skin brown marbled rags and a floor that looks like a mudroom recently visited by rubber booted children returning from a mud pie party. So I dump a bit of shampoo on the floor and scrub until the prints fade into pale pinkish blobs. The shower door is still open. I look in there. The 4x4 white tiled cubicle now resembles the cage of an elephant with diarrhea. Meanwhile, hubby comes back (he’s been out playing slot machines) and announces that we have five minutes to get down to the wedding chapel. Before we get out the door the phone rings again. It’s our son, the groom, letting me know that the wedding cake will be arriving any minute and our room has been selected for the reception.

To be continued…