Bath time.
Three to four times a week
we bathe our kids before putting them down for bed. It's a rather enjoyable
endeavor. I mean, c’mon, toddlers in the bath tub? That's cute. They get all
sudsy. They splash each other playfully. They touch their uber interesting body
parts and tell you about it all giggly. They get clean, smell good, and love
being observed in their rubber ducky splendor by whatever lucky sucker happens
to be tub side that night. Usually it's me. As a person who routinely baptizes
infants, I now get why water + babies = such a holy combination. Innocence,
purity, fluidity, play, sensory stimulation, safe exposure, touch--it's all
there. Bath time moments are among the sweetest times of parenting. Point
being: I love bath time with my kids. I love it hard core.
I'll confess that most times when I'm sitting there on the bathroom mat massaging Johnson & Johnson shampoo into their little scalps, I am so tired I can barely see straight. Turns out you can be utterly exhausted and lovingly smitten at the same time. Bath time happens around 8:00 p.m. in our household. Any semblance of mental functionality leaves me at 5:00 when I exit work. The three and half hours of family time before bed don't require much critical or complex thinking just a lot of mechanistic activity like cooking, cleaning and singing along to The Hot Dog Dance on Mickey Mouse Club.
I'll confess that most times when I'm sitting there on the bathroom mat massaging Johnson & Johnson shampoo into their little scalps, I am so tired I can barely see straight. Turns out you can be utterly exhausted and lovingly smitten at the same time. Bath time happens around 8:00 p.m. in our household. Any semblance of mental functionality leaves me at 5:00 when I exit work. The three and half hours of family time before bed don't require much critical or complex thinking just a lot of mechanistic activity like cooking, cleaning and singing along to The Hot Dog Dance on Mickey Mouse Club.
It’s not hard. This is fortunate
because I’m a total zombie. It takes all my energy to undress their bodies,
plop them in the water, wash them down, lift them out, dry them off and get
their pajamas on. (I told you I love bath time, right?) I do but it zaps
absolutely any reserves I have left, every single time. When it's over, I plop
on the sofa just long enough to check the Tiger's score and feel my spouse rub
my feet for 20 seconds before drifting off to never-never land.
If my work load or emotional state is heavy, I can dread bath time. The idea itself makes me tired. Which is exactly where I was a few weeks ago when my mom, my sister-in-law and their partners were all in town for Christmas. I'm a pastor. Christmas is the busiest time of the year for me professionally. You add 4 out of town guests to that mix and the pressure is ON. Oh and did I mention that I have two toddlers? Right. So there I was lamenting out loud, at the dinner table, how tired I was, how I couldn't fathom getting Aurora and Isaiah into the bath tub tonight. How even lifting my pinky finger felt like running a marathon; how could I possibly make it through washing not one, but TWO babies? Melodrama type shit.
My mom, patient and tested, listened with compassion. She helped out. We got through it. She then went to her hotel for the evening and came back the next morning. That’s is when the real melodramatic shit happened. As we were clearing up the breakfast meal around 10:45 a.m., I smelled something rather nasty and ripe. Since my son is the only one in diapers, I hoped it was him and I was right. I'd picked him out of his high chair in order to feel for a bulge in his diaper--which was there, massively there--but in the process something gooey and warm started running down my forearm.
If my work load or emotional state is heavy, I can dread bath time. The idea itself makes me tired. Which is exactly where I was a few weeks ago when my mom, my sister-in-law and their partners were all in town for Christmas. I'm a pastor. Christmas is the busiest time of the year for me professionally. You add 4 out of town guests to that mix and the pressure is ON. Oh and did I mention that I have two toddlers? Right. So there I was lamenting out loud, at the dinner table, how tired I was, how I couldn't fathom getting Aurora and Isaiah into the bath tub tonight. How even lifting my pinky finger felt like running a marathon; how could I possibly make it through washing not one, but TWO babies? Melodrama type shit.
My mom, patient and tested, listened with compassion. She helped out. We got through it. She then went to her hotel for the evening and came back the next morning. That’s is when the real melodramatic shit happened. As we were clearing up the breakfast meal around 10:45 a.m., I smelled something rather nasty and ripe. Since my son is the only one in diapers, I hoped it was him and I was right. I'd picked him out of his high chair in order to feel for a bulge in his diaper--which was there, massively there--but in the process something gooey and warm started running down my forearm.
Once I got him on the
changing table, both of my hands, the portion of my t-shirt covering my hip and
my entire right arm were covered in dark orange diarrhea. It smelled as nasty
as it looked. It was all over my kid: out of his diaper, throughout his little
pants, up the onesie on his back. There was nowhere this shit wouldn't go! This
was an over-achiever type shit! Unexpected? Yes. Expansive? Yes. But it was
also so gross you almost couldn't believe the degree of gross, except that the
sight and smell were bringing you to climax of another kind from another end.
The more I cleaned the sicker I got--and there was a LOT to clean. It was
brutal.
"Mom, please, please start the bath water!" I yelled to the dining room.
Soon thereafter I heard the faucet gushing next door. Thank you, Jesus! I could not wait to get that filth and stench off me and off that baby. Soap and water are a mighty, mighty power in this life. Within moments there wasn't a trace of unexpected shit anywhere. What a miracle--bath time! The very thing I couldn't fathom doing the night before was my saving grace the next morning.
Which got me thinking…
Sometimes it's the unexpected shit in life that can dramatically altar/alter your perspective for the better.
Which got me thinking…
Is there anything outside of God's scope? Is there anything God can't use to make us better, make us wiser, make us more grateful and grace-filled?
Then I remembered that my friend and Pastor Rev. Alma Crawford had sent me a link from the New York Times about a year ago. It was about how a shit transplant had saved some dude's life. Like, literally, his friend who didn't want him to die had chemicals in her stool that he desperately needed in his system. So she became a shit donor and they transplanted her shit into him. AND. HE. LIVED.
C’mon, yall. Shit has healing properties. Shit.
Isn't God great?
"Mom, please, please start the bath water!" I yelled to the dining room.
Soon thereafter I heard the faucet gushing next door. Thank you, Jesus! I could not wait to get that filth and stench off me and off that baby. Soap and water are a mighty, mighty power in this life. Within moments there wasn't a trace of unexpected shit anywhere. What a miracle--bath time! The very thing I couldn't fathom doing the night before was my saving grace the next morning.
Which got me thinking…
Sometimes it's the unexpected shit in life that can dramatically altar/alter your perspective for the better.
Which got me thinking…
Is there anything outside of God's scope? Is there anything God can't use to make us better, make us wiser, make us more grateful and grace-filled?
Then I remembered that my friend and Pastor Rev. Alma Crawford had sent me a link from the New York Times about a year ago. It was about how a shit transplant had saved some dude's life. Like, literally, his friend who didn't want him to die had chemicals in her stool that he desperately needed in his system. So she became a shit donor and they transplanted her shit into him. AND. HE. LIVED.
C’mon, yall. Shit has healing properties. Shit.
Isn't God great?
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