Attack of the Floating Bathtub Monster

This post serves two functions: to hopefully make you laugh and to solicit some advice for a very tricky situation that I can't seem to solve.

First off, this is my adorable little girl. She is full of personality, late-night giggles and spunk. I love her to pieces. However, once she sets her mind to something, it is nearly IMPOSSIBLE to sway her. Maybe all 2-year-olds are like that, I'm not sure.

Anyway, the other day she was taking a bath and I was sitting near the tub browsing through social media while I gave her time to play with her toys. Suddenly, she got up, squealed in fright and ran to one side of the tub. I quickly looked over the edge of the tub to investigate and immediately saw what had frightened her. There in the water floated a brown, disgusting thing that she had... ahem... created herself. Only she didn't know she had created it. In her eyes, it was a floating bathtub monster that had appeared out of nowhere and was slowly making its way towards her to eat her flesh or something.

Even though I was thoroughly grossed out, I couldn't help but laugh as she ran around the tub trying to avoid the "creature" that kept coming towards her. I reached out my arms and she practically leaped out of the tub, pointing and tearfully yelling "NO, NO!" at her soggy bathtub pursuer.  I cleaned her up, fought through the inevitable dry-heaving as I cleaned up the tub, then drew some fresh bathwater so she could finish her bath. However, she had no intention of going anywhere near that tub after her terrifying experience. I have tried bribing her with bathtub toys, distracting her, and staying right by her side, but she is clearly too terrified to ever take a bath again at this point.

Thankfully, she does not share the same fear of showers (even though she also had an accident once in the shower. The "monster" couldn't actually follow her around that time though, so I think that's why it didn't traumatize her). Clearly we are going to have a difficult time potty training if she doesn't understand where these brown things keep coming from.

So, I have been giving her showers with me, but it is so hard to avoid getting shampoo and soap in her eyes with the water splashing everywhere. Plus, it takes me like 30 minutes just to get through a shower when she is in there with me. So, if anyone has ever dealt with the scary floating bathtub monster before, please let me know what you did to minimize your child's fear. Otherwise, I hope you enjoyed the post. Oh, and watch out for those bathtub monsters. They're sneaky!