I read this post here and thought it funny and reassuring all at once, so I'm passing it on to you. (How well I am beginning to relate!)

A bath for baby

Tuesday, Feb 28, 2006

The answer to, “How do you do it
all?” is simple. Nobody does it all. If you bake your own bread and
mill your own wheat, then you probably don’t polish your silverware. If
you polish your silverware, you probably don’t parse Latin verbs with
your kids. If you do Latin with your kids, you probably don’t have a
garden. If you have a garden and do all of the above…you probably don’t
take a shower. And I’ll bet your garden has weeds.

I had another chance this week to discuss the How-do-you-do-it
question from a still wet behind the ears mom. Why she’s asking me, I
figure, is just for the sake of conversation. She can’t imagine I do it
all. I mean, if she bothered to look, she would have noticed
that I didn’t even bring my Bible to church. Let alone the diaper bag.
(One can scrounge a diaper from a hidden place in the van, if
necessary…)

When the mom with the newborn told me about her day and its trials, she related her baby’s routine and his nighttime bath.

And
I remembered. I remembered when I had my firstborn and gave him a bath
every evening before bed. I remembered that I dressed him in
sleepy-time clothes and powdered him up. I remembered that I would comb
his peach-fuzz hair. I’d even brush his one tooth. I’d talk and sing to
him, rock and cuddle him. He even had a mobile in his crib that sported
working batteries.

Then I remembered my #4 baby. We didn’t
even own one of those plastic baby tubs. Takes too much storage space.
A box of baby wipes is much more efficient. Sure, we’d rinse her off in
the sink when one of the diapers failed to contain its contents, but
she had to wait until she could sit up to have a real bath. With the
other girls, of course. Currently, we line them up, three-in-a-row, and
wash their hair in assembly line fashion. Not wanting to ruin their
childhoods entirely, I do use (generic, of course) lavender-scented
baby shampoo. Then, we dress the baby in cozy blue pajamas, a remnant
of an over-indulged firstborn. I feel no guilt.

For the
record, when I sorted through the newborn clothes for our #5 baby, my
husband put his foot down and told me that no son of his was going to
wear pink pajamas. Even if it was only for around the house.

With
each addition, the grooming and manual tasks get streamlined. But don’t
for a second imagine that their caretaking gets short-changed. Number
five will not have special baby Q-tips and coordinating sleeping
booties, but he will have more hugs, lovin’, attention, prayers and
holding than any baby in the neighborhood.

**********

Our
20-month-old was just getting over the flu a few weeks ago. My oldest
boy asked if he could have another job to earn more money before we
left for the store. I conceded, and we left together for a quick
shopping trip. He pulled out his money, counted it several times, and
checked the prices carefully on everything. And then he purchased a
glob of candy for his baby sister. Because she didn’t feel good.

And so, my conscience remains ever clear about #4’s babyhood bath time. It’s all good.