He’s a water baby

There are few things in the world that The Bean loves more than Yo Gabba Gabba or loading up a clean diaper. Bath time is one of them. Every night after dinner it starts.

“Bath?” (which sounds like “batch-huh”)

In fact, the same question is asked many different ways.

Sweet and pleading: “Bath Daddy?”

Demanding you-better-listen-to-me: “Daddy! BATH!”

Oh, I’m sorry. That was a misunderstanding: “Pwease? Bath?”

And, of course, the answer is always yes.

We have bath time down to an art. I am typically the designator bather, so I’ll get his water going and then get him out of his diaper and ready to go. Then he practically jumps out of my arms and into the tub within range (note to self: strap him to my chest when approaching tub).

I get the dirty work over with quickly; I use a wash cloth to wet his hair, wash it and rinse it. That’s his least favorite part of the bath but he tolerates it pretty well. After that, we work down from his goofy little ears to his chubby little toes. And rinse. He prefers to lay on his tummy once we’re done washing so I’m always careful to only fill the tub enough to give him water to play in but not reach his shoulders, neck or face. No judgey parent comments – he’s never left unattended for even a millisecond.

After cleaning up comes his favorite part: PLAY TIME!

We splash, we laugh, we pour water, we sometimes pee a little bit and laugh that we’re peeing (where does that stuff come from!?!?!). Knock on wood, we’ve never pinched one out in the tub yet. Even though we play for a solid 5-10 minutes, it’s never enough for the Water Bean. When it’s time to get out of the tub, he knows it and scrambles to the back of the tub. When I eventually grab the slippery. thrashing baby, his world ends. There is no happiness left and the man is bringing him down.

And then, 30 seconds later, he’s laughing because he’s wrapped in a towel and he just realized that he doesn’t have a shirt on (nipples are the funniest thing in the history of the world to a 16-month-old).

We hit the changing table, put on our diaper, lather on some lotion (mmmm….clean baby smell), put on our PJs and then go out to play a little before bed time. Putting lotion on is also one of the funniest things in the world because it tickles like crazy. Of course it doesn’t help that Daddy makes sure to make it an extra tickley application.

Out of all of Bean’s routines, this is probably his favorite. It’s mine as well. We get some alone time and, because he loves water so much, he’s always super happy, relaxed and spends most of the time laughing and playing. As an adult, a professional, a spouse and a father, I’m pulled in a million directions every day (like everyone else) and I always feel like I’m missing too many opportunities to connect and love on our boy. Jer and I are both pretty good about always pausing everything else and making sure that we’re focused on the Bean and that we’re getting that family time in. That can be a challenge some nights though. I always know that, for those 30 minutes of splishy plashy fun, it’s Daddy and Bean time. There’s no such thing as work, as Facebook, as the telephone. It’s just me and my boy peeing in the tub and laughing about it.

And then draining the tub, filling it back up and rewashing because pee water is nasty.