Blood Bath

"Chickens are naturally clean and only get truly dirty when they are kept in less than ideal conditions..." (From a poster on the GardenWeb forum, answering the question: How do you give a chicken a bath?, a fairly humorous read for anyone looking to kill time.)


You know bath time has gone terribly wrong when:

• 1) It allows you to start a blog with: you know bath time has gone terribly wrong when....

• 2) Your six year old comes screeching into the laundry room (two floors down) naked and dripping, towel in hand, and says "Mom, you need to come upstairs right now because Lily is getting blood all over. It's coming out REALLY fast, but don't worry, she hasn't gotten it on the clothes yet, just everywhere else."

Oh good, because I was really concerned that she had ruined the clothes....HELLO? Give me the SOURCE of the blood please!

"Madeline, where is she bleeding from?" I asked calmly, as we headed upstairs.

"It's just her nose but it is All. Over. The Place!" Madeline explains. (Phew. At least it isn't an ER night.)

• 3) You enter the bathroom and mistake it for a reenactment of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.

Ok, seriously. Just out of curiosity, what do you usually do when you get a bloody nose? Grab a tissue, right? Maybe sit still as you breathe through your mouth and hold your nose tight, yes?

Apparently that is not a trait with which we are born. Upon entering the above scene I found Lily tightrope walking along the edge of the tub, breathing blood through her nose like a fire breathing dragon and I must have just missed her helicopter-gone-wild-routine because there was blood EVERYWHERE! It was splattered on the wall; swirled in, around and behind the toilet; decorating the outside edges of the toilet paper (still not sure how she missed the middle entirely!); dripping in the sink, on the floor, in the tub, all over the bath mats, down the sides (inside and out) of the trash can.....Not to mention Lily looked like she had just single-handedly fought Vietnam! Really. I think the only way she might have covered more area was if she had hooked up a hose to her nostril and deliberately sprayed the place down. But hey, she missed the clothes! Yippee!

And to think, some people get red roses or red wine on Valentines....

Of course, where's the creativity in THAT?! Next year, try giving your spouse/mom/friend their very own blood bath to clean up. It's the perfect gift for the CSI lover wanting to gather DNA evidence for their kid's next science project or for anyone wishing to test the effectiveness of various household cleaners. Oh, and make sure they get to end the evening with a conversation like this:

Me: "Was this an accident or did you hit your sister on purpose?"

Madeline: "What does 'on purpose' even mean?"

Right....define accident...

Oh well. At least now I know my chickens are in need of more "ideal conditions."

Happy (belated) Valentine"s Day!