Never Give Up

Dad & I have given up. Or, at least I had until yesterday. We had given up on ever giving J a happy bath; on him ever liking to go to church. We just lowered our heads and powered through his screams in the tub, and his complaints that he "HATES church."

Yesterday, I was thinking about all the things I never did in the bath with J, that I'd done in the bath with the other kids. Playing with toys, blowing bubbles onto their little wet bodies, singing silly songs. Bath time has gotten steadily shorter and shorter with each child - a less frequent. M was every day when she was a baby, because I couldn't get over her tiny body. J gets a bath once a week, Sunday mornings. And he hates them - which I thought might be leading to his hatred of all things Sunday, because they were so closely related to that bath.

Last week, all Dad had to do was tell J that he was dirty, and he started backing up, saying, "I NOT dirty!" and he ran downstairs to take refuge with me. Until I betrayed him and led him upstairs to be tortured with warm water and soap.

Yesterday, I tried luring him into the tub with the promise of bubbles. I thought that at least, I would put off the screaming until he was already in the bath. J wanted the bubbles - but he still kicked and yelled a bit when I got him ready to go into the bath. While Dad cleaned S quickly and efficiently, talking about not having time to play... I blew bubbles all over the tub, luring J out of his defensive position and getting him to play along. Then, I told J that I needed to wash his feet. He lifted his feet up and let me soap them up, though he complained a bit about it. I moved up his legs, and cleaned his sweet little self. He calmed down. While I was rinsing the soap from his body, he looked up at me and told me, "My hair dirty."

I looked into his sweet, trusting eyes, and said, "Do you want me to wash your hair?" He said, "Yes." I tried not to show my shock as he crouched down. "Okay, look at the moon!" I crooned to him. He tilted his head back, and as I poured water over his hair, we sang "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" together - and he knew almost all the words, which surprised me again. (I did this with all the other kids - by the end of the song, I am done with the water. They all learned to trust that the torture would end, and wouldn't fight the water and end up with water in their eyes, the worst part of baths,) I soaped up his head, and he told me he was all done. I told him to wait, we had to rinse his hair. So, he crouched back down, and we sang the song again while I rinsed his hair. Then, he happily climbed out of the tub, I wrapped him up in a nice fluffy towel, and hugged him close to me - the only bath time tradition that I've carried on to him and that he clings to even after he's screamed at me all through the bath.

We got him dressed, and he said, "Okay, lets go to church!"

Who are you, and what have you done with my little boy???

I am so glad that I listened to the prompting to play with the bubbles, instead of just accepting that bath time was horrible, and continuing to make it that way for my little one.