Morning Routine, With Variations

After my morning work-out in the gym downstairs I usually make my way back up through the kitchen for a small glass of orange juice, wiping the sweat off my forehead and face with a couple of paper towels on my way back down the hallway. Which Lisa hates, so I hide the bally mess in my waistband as I step into the bedroom in order to grab some fresh clothes. Morning light is now coming over the top the curtains like a row of flying buttresses – one of them propped up on the bedcover by Lisa’s foot. It isn’t necessary to hide anything, I should have realized: Lisa is splayed out on the bed as usual, looking as if she’d fallen onto it from about 10 stories up. She tries to turn over, and at the same time I hear laughter from the bathroom, but I’ve already turned the corner to investigate myself, and she slumps back down into the pillow, face first.

Our three year-old Lisa Jr. is squatting in the shower, playing next to a stack of tiles and support beams I’d dug up to take out a bad section of dry rot. It’s a fairly dank and grimy mess, especially so amidst the pristine whiteness of the tiles. ‘Sorry, honey, but daddy needs to take a shower now,’ I say, throwing the wad of paper into the waste bucket underneath the counter. I reached in to the shower to pull her out by her free arm and had her dangling over the threshold when I heard Lisa groaning from the bedroom. I look over and see that she’s now turned herself over and is propped up somewhat on the pillow. ‘Go ahead and have her shower with you, John. David drew all over her face.’ I check and see and, sure enough, she has a goatee drawn on her chin, with a curlicue mustache spread out across her upper lip.

‘All right,’ I say, dragging it out a little to emphasize that I’m not entirely happy with the situation, ‘you’re off to the showers with me!’ and lift her out of the shower by her forearm as she’s reaching into the pile of tiles with the other hand, and then swing her up to my chest as we walk towards the shower in the bathroom off the main hallway. She takes off her clothes next to the bathtub, kicking her pajama bottoms as far as she can across the bathroom floor. I hoist her up into the bathtub and draw the curtain closed behind me with one hand while I turn on the water with the other.

I pick up Lisa Jr. to hold her head under the faucet, and she’s smiling and laughing as she ducks from the stream a little and holds out her hands for shampoo. ‘What in the world were you two thinking,’ I say, and begin going after the mustache with the loofah. ‘Davey said I had to be the bad guy,’ explains Lisa, plaintively. When I’ve finished I set her down for a quick shampoo and a rinse, and then I turn off the water to let her know that our time together is over. ‘Can you dry yourself off while I shampoo myself?’ I ask her, not really asking. I hardly draw back the curtain as I swing her back out onto the bathroom floor. ‘I need to move fast now.’ ‘Sure, daddy,’ says Lisa Jr., and takes the big step onto the linoleum floor. I pull down a towel and drape it over her head. She giggles, looking and sounding a little like Tinky Winky.

It’s then that I finally peel off my shorts and soap myself down quickly. I was rinsing the shampoo out of my hair when I notice something down by faucet. It’s a loose tile, but when I touch it with my finger I manage to dislodge two more right next to it. ‘Damn!’ I say without thinking, and squat down to test the others around them with my fingers. I never was much good at tiling. It’s there in the squatting position, the water pounding my head from above, that I notice a dark shadow to my right, and then the more specific outline of Lisa Jr.’s head. She’s got her hands around her eyes, binocular style, her face pressed into the shower curtain to try and find out what new shenanigans dad is up to in there. ‘It’s nothing, honey, just a little trouble where the water comes out. Go get your mom up, and then I’ll be out in a second.’