Welcome to the Lab

Tonight when I gave Kate a bath I held out the mesh bag o’ bath toys for her to pick a few, and then was overcome by some force of kookiness beyond my control and decided to dump all the bath toys in there at once.

This is probably 15 times the number of toys Kate usually bathes with. I decided to conduct a small experiment. Would this many more toys make the bath that much more fun?

I’m sure you’re at the edge of your seat. It turns out that it was somewhat more fun than our usual bath time, but not because Kate was creating some uber-complex pretend scenario in the tub that involved the integration of all 71 toys. (I counted them while putting them away.) Instead the fun factor seemed upped simply by the fact that Kate reconnected with some toys that apparently were wedged at the bottom of the toy sack and weren’t getting a lot of play. Why knew those plastic turltes held such allure for her? Why, I wondered, had I been denying her them and only selecting the toys each night that I deemed play-with-able.

The bath did seem a good deal more fun for me. Just was kinda funny seeing her sitting amidst a bobbing mass of plastic crap.

But as we all know, an experiment is hardly statistically valid if it’s just conducted once on such a small population as one (even if she is of world-class cuteness and brilliance caliber). Perhaps I can start a trend where parents everywhere throw caution to the wind and dump all the bath toys into the tub at once, then feverishly record their findings and report back to me. I’m not sure what the ultimate result would be, but I’ve no doubt it would be quite powerful.