Less Is More…Except When Bathing Boys, or, Why Not to Bathe the Not June Way

Regularly scheduled little boy bathing tends to fall by the wayside in this anti-Cleaver home. I have a vague goal of soaking them many times each week but when it actually occurs is a little more, um, spontaneous. With the three-year-old being super sick for the last week (i.e. hostile, needy, clingy, whiney, feverish, flushed and crabby- the Seven Dwarfs of preschool illness), my six-year-old lucked out on the bath front. Somehow he made it from Friday to Tuesday without bathing. Gross, I know. So last night he soaked and soaked, piled up to his chin with luxurious bath bubbles and tinted water. He looked so clean and fresh and shiny that I let go of all my non-bathing guilt in a moment of hygenic victory as, really, he seemed no worse for wear during this exceptional week of grooming neglect. Until I saw the tub this morning. Oh, sweet Jesus. No, that is not a specimen slide of some horrible lab culture of a pathogen destined to take over the world. That is what came off of my son. And that’s about a foot by foot shot of what covered the entire, adult-sized spa tub across every surface from bottom to up the sides. I’m sure there are many take home messages you can pull from this post (first and foremost being “Don’t Read NotJune Soon After Eating”). Mine is definitely to embrace June a little more sometimes, especially when it comes to bathing boys.