All Things Reconsidered: The Worst Christmas Song Ever

This past weekend, Paul McCartney was the musical guest on Saturday Night Live. And for his closing number, he sang what I consider to be the worst Christmas song ever: "Wonderful Christmastime."

If you've been reading my personal blog over the years, you might remember that I am a huge, huge, huge Beatles fan. Which means that I love Paul on his own as well, and have seen him in concert twice: once in Boston in 2002 (check out my decade-old article in my grad-school paper here) and again last summer at Wrigley Field. But I still cannot abide that damn song.

Here's where the irony comes in, though. For some unknown reason, my husband and I made up a little ditty that we sing to Baba G every night to kick off his bedtime routine, and it is set to the tune of Wonderful Christmastime.

?!?!

Compare the lyrics.

Original 1979 song:
The moon is right
The spirit's up
We're here tonight
And that's enough
Simply having a wonderful Christmastime
Simply having a wonderful Christmastime 


Our song:
The water's warm
And the time is right
For a bath time
Tonight

Simply having a wonderful bathtime
Simply having a wonderful bathtime

(And then the part where Paul goes "ding dong ding dong" we go "splish splash splish splash.")

So now, instead of only having this annoying tune stuck in my head during the holidays, I have to deal with it YEAR-ROUND. What have we done? And WHY have we done this? (I blame my husband — he claims to actually like the original song, and I still can't figure out if he's just messing with me.)

It seems to make Baba G happy, at least.

Do you guys have any weird traditions/routines like this?

Primo EuroBath

I was terrified to clip Baba G's fingernails... and only slightly less scared to give him a bath. I hadn't even started looking into baby tubs when a friend sent me the Primo Eurobath. She had two toddlers, so I figured she had done her homework.

And she had, because this tub has been great. It's got two "positions": one for babies who can't sit up yet and the other for those who have mastered the art of not flopping over every two seconds.

Here's what it looks like without anyone in it:

And here are model babies in the two positions:

It's easy to put a towel under your baby in the reclining position to give him a little more padding and help him refrain from sliding around too much. That's what we did when BG was really small.

But now he's a big boy (nearly 10 months old) and usually sits up during bath time, even though I actually still put him in with the "option to recline," because sometimes he likes to just chill with his ducky like so:

Winding down after a long day

He can still sit up just fine from that position:

Where's the party?

When I was pulling in the generic product shots for this post, I realized that some people are quite fanatical about this tub. It's gotten a lot of rave reviews on Amazon, and I have to say that even though I haven't really given much thought to what would or wouldn't make for a great baby tub, I have no complaints about this one and am glad my friend saved me the trouble of having to worry about it.

The bottom line: The Primo EuroBath costs about $39 and is something you're going to use every day for at least a few years. (Unless you don't give your kid a bath every day, in which case, rock on with your stankity baby! Kidding — I'll be the first to say they don't actually need that much cleaning! In fact, in the winter especially it can dry them out.) But you get my point: it's not an expensive product for how much you're going to use it. Having said that, my parents always washed my little brother in a dish tub and he turned out just fine.

Other things I like about the EuroBath besides the two-position design are: 1) the little grooves it has to hold washcloths, toys, a small bottle or soap, or what have you 2) the fact that it has a drain, even though I always just flip it over (it sits in our bigger tub) when we're done. But I like the OPTION of a drain, 3) how light it is, 4) that it doesn't have any scary chemicals in its materials, AND 5) it stands up easily on one end to dry out (some people add a tie onto it in order to hang it from the wall.

So yes, you could say I give this product a "yay." Baba G seems to like it, too.

Out of curiosity, does anyone out there have one of those "spa" tubs for their kid? The kind that warm up and make the water all bubbly and whatnot? I have a pedicure tub like that and always wondered if babies could possibly appreciate the luxury!

Skip*Hop Moby Bath Spout Cover

The Skip*Hop Moby Bath Spout Cover is one of those "Why didn't *I* think of that and become a millionaire?" products. So simple in its concept, but — to my knowledge — still relatively new to the baby-products scene. It's a cute little whale (or duck) that covers up the faucet and helps overactive kids avoid nasty bumps on their heads during bathtime.

In the early days (when BG was always chill) I didn't see why anyone would need one of these, but now that he is pretty hyper during his bath and moving positions constantly or attempting to climb out of the tub half the time, I get it.

And guess what? Just like the traffic sign and the Bon Jovi album (do I date myself?), babies and toddlers are slippery when wet. You might think you've got a good hold of them and then... kerplunk back down into the water they go. Extra padding around stuff like the faucet is a good thing in those situations.

Hello, Mr. Whale!

The bottom line: I suppose if your kid rammed his head into the tub spout with a ton of force, this soft-plastic whale isn't going to do much in the way of preventing a disaster. But in normal circumstances it should help stave off a shiner or a black eye or something worse.

A ton of different brands have jumped on the "spout cover" bandwagon, so there are a lot of options to choose from. But this Skip*Hop one seemed to be the most highly rated, and I pretty much couldn't escape it on any baby-products web site, so that's what we went with. It goes for about $10.50 on Amazon.

Johnson's Safety Swabs

We've been extremely lucky in that we've NEVER had to take Baba G's temperature in eight full months. (I hope I didn't just jinx myself.) This had been something I was especially freaked out about, because I knew that "the right way" to take a baby's temperature was rectally. And, for obvious reasons, that was something I was really hoping I wouldn't have to put BG through.

BUT I was prepared to if need be, and had found a thermometer that has a rounded shape so that, to put it bluntly, it's impossible for you to stick it in too far.

Then I learned that there were special baby q-tips made for the exact same reason.

Now, I know you're not supposed to be sticking q-tips deep in anyone's ear, let alone a baby's, in the first place. But if there's a better way to clean out ear wax than gently using a swab around the visible part of the canal, no one's told me about it. So Johnson's Safety Swabs it is.

These things rock. They're not just a scam to get you to buy something that's labeled "BABY," like so many other countless products are—humidifiers, vaporizers, etc., come to mind. How are the baby versions any different from a normal humidifier/vaporizer/etc.? I'll tell you: they're more expensive! They think we're suckers.

Anyway, as you can see below, the safety swabs are shaped differently from a normal Q-tip, and they're great for just getting out really obvious gunk that's built up. I use them on Baba G at least every other day for the past few months (I didn't start using them until he was probably four or five months old—was too scared, plus I hadn't seen any wax).

He seems to actually like the feel of them, and I've never been worried about him making a sudden move and me jamming one in too far.

The bottom line: Johnson's Safety Swabs run from about $1.50 - $2.50 per box of 55. In my book, increased peace of mind about not hurting your kid's ears is definitely worth that small expense. I personally have not seen another brand of safety swabs, though I'm sure Johnson & Johnson's isn't the only company in the game.