Level-up!

Any mother will tell you that a boy’s hygiene between the ages of 10 - 13-ish is suspect, to say the least. You can train them as well as the next mom from a very young age. My son would start his own showers by the time he was six and could bathe himself better than some men. However, when he turned nine or ten, I began to notice a change in him. I would tell him to go and take his bath, and he would make excuses and delay until he thought we forgot.

As time went on, water became an aversion worse than vegetables. You would have thought I was trying to get him into a vat of acid. On those days that I could actually get him to enter the dreaded room of doom, he would close and lock the door, turn on the shower, and stay in so long that I feared he would deplete the water for the entire county. When he would finally emerge an hour later, his skin was suspiciously dry and lacking the wrinkles that an hour long shower would produce.

Meanwhile, his iPad, DS, or Nintendo Switch would be warm as he still clutched it in his death grip gamer hand. And, I would be too tired to fight any further. I had to pretend that I did not know that he simply sat on the lid of the toilet and leveled-up for the last hour while the shower poured gallons of water anddollars, down the drain. 

They always said one day boys suddenly wake up and care about their hygiene. However, I did not believe them… that is until two weeks ago when his older cousin showed him how to make his hair look cool. 

“Mom, can you get me some of that S-curl and Cantu Conditioner that T.J. uses? Also, I am out of shampoo.”

Huh? Did I hear him correctly?

I was floored. I wanted to shout to the top of my lungs, “HALLELUJAH!” It was finally happening. Now this was leveling-up!

I did have enough sense to know that I had to play it cool so that I would not scare him off. You know, like when you are trying to get an animal to come to you and you move real slow to gain its trust. So, I just nodded and said “okay” as if that was our everyday conversation… and not his first request in 12 years.

If wearing his hair curly was important enough to make him take showers without being held at a metaphorical gunpoint, then I wasn’t wasting any time. I hurried out to get his product, but in my haste I forgot the shampoo. So that week, I happily shared my shampoo with him until I could get back to the store.  

That Saturday, I picked him up his first very “Men’s Smell Good Shampoo,” as opposed to the two-in-one body wash/shampoo family friendly kiddie stuff that he had been refilling with water (when he did deign to actually get in on those rare occasions that he complied.) Then I rushed home happily anticipating his excitement at his new product. Since he wasn’t there, I placed it on his bathroom counter and went into his shower to get what was left of my shampoo. 

That is when reality slapped me in the face. Though my son had been showering everyday and adding hair gel and conditioner to make his hair cool — that is all he had been doing! There was not a lick of soap anywhere in his bathroom. So much for hygiene. Game over.
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