Ahhh—remember the days when you could primp and prep for the day on your own schedule? No little fingers snaking under the door, or worse — small children who take it upon themselves to become backyard explorers while you’re in the shower.

With my youngest now at 3-and-a-half, I’m finally beginning to see the light again. But in talking with friends who have “little-littles,” I vividly recall the days when I was forced to use Dora the Explorer to buy me a time for *any* sort of personal hygiene. And Dora was only about 20 minutes long in the versions we watched, so I was on a timer from the get-go. It went something like this:

Ready? Set? Primp!!

0:00 – 1:00 Make sure all the doors and bolted; put Dora on TV. Turn the shower on and throw clothes off your body, letting them land where they may.

1:00 – 4:00 Get in, frantically scrub hair, face and body in the water that still isn’t quite warm yet. Slather on conditioner with one hand, while brushing your teeth with the other. Rinse. No time to repeat.

4:00 Look down at legs and reminisce fondly about the last time you had time to shave.

4:01 – 4:30 Turn off water, realize you hadn’t rinsed off all the soap, and re-rinse in a cold spray.

4:30 – 5:00 Step out and wrap self in only clean towel available—which is damp, since your kids’ used it last night.

5:00 Make a mental note to put more towels in the laundry.

5:01 – 7:00 Towel dry hair and work over-priced hair gel — or straightening mousse or shine enhancer or whatever the salon was pushing the last time you went for a haircut — into hair.

7:00 – 8:00 Run out to living room in towel (leaving wet footprints on the carpet) to make sure child is still in Dora-induced coma.

8:00 Feel guilty for using TV as babysitter and muse over child-rearing experts who would berate me for letting a toddler watch TV.

8:01 – 10:00 Use hair dryer to damp-dry hair. Plug in hair straightener. Appreciate the fact that the drone of the dryer blocks out all other noise and appreciate the ‘silence.’

10:00 – 12:00 Rapid fire cosmetics.

12:00 Longingly wish for Jetsons-style robot makeup applicator.

12:01 – 13:00 Run into closet to find clothes that have no appreciable stains, drool marks and still fit.

13:00 – 15:00 Use now-scorching flat iron to style hair, ignoring steam that comes from flat-ironing hair that is still slightly damp.

15:00 – 17:00 Realize that clothes you thought were clean have ketchup on the pants and spit-up down the back. Go back into closet to try again.

17:00 – 18:00 Begin cleaning up mess made from functioning like a tornado in a bottle.

18:00 – 19:00 Knock down smoke detector in bedroom that has gone off due to excessive smoke from flat-ironing damp hair.

19:00 Make mental note to buy new smoke detector.

19:01 – 19:45 Run to living room and console hysterical child who was scared by the incredibly loud noise of both the detector and your attempts to make it stop.

19:45 Realize that what you gave up in primp time you get back in cuddle time later.

19:46 – 20:00 Snuggle some more and begin the day.