The Queen’s Bath Time

All I could see of her face was forehead to chin, cheekbone to cheekbone.  The Queen had her spa bath tonight and she was literally up to her ears in bubbles.  The lavender-scented Epsom salt bubble bath, a cup of baking soda, and a towel over top of her as she soaks is what sets these baths apart from her typical ones. 

And she loves them.

Stillness settles over her as she lay back, my arms underneath her to increase the sensation of buoyancy.  Slowly I sway her—back…forth…back….forth—the rhythm seeming to command weightiness to her eyelids.  My mind swooped back to the times I bathed her in the kitchen sink when she was a baby.  All the way up to the age of 2 ½ she couldn’t support herself while sitting, so I’d cradle her with one arm while bathing her with the other.  Amazing how dexterous we moms are with our babies.  I’d wash her fine, curly hair with Johnson’s No More Tears, then hold up a mirror for her to see the white mass of bubbles piled on top of her head.  Each time, I’d try to make it higher, higher, to see how tall it’d go before it would plop over. A yawn covers her face. 

Back….forth….back….forth.  The water cocoon and heavy towel brings tranquility.  Daily, her muscles are worked 3 times as hard as anyone else’s in similar situations.  A typical task is hard work for her.  An expenditure of energy.  Her bath time is therapy. The swaying continues as I quietly sing, “Hush little baby don’t say a word……Omma’s gonna buy you a mockingbird…”  My left arm is under her at the small of her back, my right hand cradles the back of her head.  “….and if that mockingbird won’t sing, Omma’s gonna buy you a diamond ring….” 

Forty minutes have passed–I feel the water starting to cool. I situate her where her head is out of the water, and she’s covered from her neck to her toes.  She remains quiet.  I scoop up a palm full of bubbles and put them on her face to make a white beard and she asks for the mirror (yes, she has a non-specific one for bath time, which started with the kitchen sink baths.)  She cracks up at the sight.  Twenty-four years I’ve done this.  Just as I begin thinking nothing has changed, I realize it has.  I reach for the razor and uncover her left leg, shave it, then repeat the process with her right.  My baby.  And I am shaving her legs.  She’s wearing a bubble beard, a plastic fish floats in the water, and I’m shaving her legs.

Some may see it as a confusing mish-mash of baby toys and grown up necessities.  I see it as a blessed blend of all things I’ve been chosen to do.  Keep her clean.  Let her have fun.  Help her relax.  Be silly with her.  Why wouldn’t I?  Why shouldn’t I? 

I walk her to her bedroom, the too-big feet on her puppy-printed pajamas flopping in front of her which gives her a gait like a cat walking in wet grass.  Her honey-gold hair has been blown dry, and is “so shiny and ‘poofy’” as Adday proclaimed.  (We 80’s peeps see that as a compliment, don’t we?)  She grabs her Meer, I sit beside her and begin our bedtime prayers.  I whisper her secrets in her ear (something else I’ve done since Aug. 3, 1992,) and am nearly overcome with nostalgia.   Oh, how blessed I’ve been to do this for 24 years.  291 months to be precise.  Bath time replete with bubbles, fish that squirt water, bubble beards and shampoo crowns.  My baby.  She is freshly bathed.  Smells of lavender.  And has smooth legs.

Blessed, indeed.