Ever since you began to walk, you have refused to sit down in the bathtub. You totter resolutely from one end to the other, a jar lid or medicine dropper or travel-size bottle of shampoo held in each fist. Small butt. Round belly. Aghast at the thought of sitting.
So I decided to start bathing with you again, something I haven't done since you were small. I thought of doing so a few nights ago when I had an entire half hour long phone conversation with my friend Miriam while she was in the tub with her 18-month-old daughter, Ursula. So now I fill the water a little higher and make the temperature a little warmer. I try not to think about the hunched curve of my spine or the swells of belly fat at my waist. I lean my back into the faucet so you won't hit it with your head. Tonight I added bubbles. You were baffled. I could feel your muscles relax when some of the bubbles cleared a bit and you could see your toes in the water below. You quickly forgot about the bubbles and focused on a Dasani water bottle instead. You sat facing me, your legs pressed against my thighs, and practiced putting the blue cap on the water bottle, over and over again.
Sometimes I know, when a moment is happening, that I will long to return to it when you are grown. Like tonight. The warmth, your slick skin and dark lashes, the barely noticeable echo of our voices, the sound of Daddy finishing the dinner dishes downstairs, Luxy nosing the door open from time to time to peer in on us, the bubbles silently dispersing (a soft fizzing sound I can actually hear when alone in the tub), and your absolute focus on a small blue lid and the place you know it belongs.
That last paragraph almost brought me to tears. Those thoughts always seem to come to me when I'm reading Ephram books before bedtime, or putting his pajamas on.
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