Wash Your Worries Away

When Luke and Jaz were born it took me a little while to really bond with them and to connect the babies in my arms with the babies who had been inside me. I think my difficulty stemmed from the traumatic birth as well as the fact that I had two babies to be bonding with at once. When I'd snuggle one, I'd feel guilty about neglecting the other. If one of them had an easy day and the other had a difficult day, I'd worry that maybe I liked the "easy" baby better. I resented each of them for not letting me indulge fully in just loving one of them up, the way the other moms in my "beyond birth" support group got to. I felt quite tormented by my feelings until I discovered the bliss of bathing with my babies. One at a time, I'd take them into the tub with me and pretend I was giving birth to them the way I'd always imagined it happening. Peacefully, quietly, in the water. And for some reason this made all the difference in the world. From then on, whenever we'd hit a rough patch in the day, I'd fill the tub. Before long I became adept at bathing with both babies at once, and on some days we'd take 3 or 4 baths a day! We all enjoyed it so much.

As the years went by, I continued to enjoy sharing a tub with the kids. We no longer bathed together several times a day, but we did it at least once a week or so. I've always felt like it's the closest I can get to putting kids back in my womb for a bit. Usually our baths leave us all feeling better connected and in better moods. When I was pregnant with Zeb, we lived in a house with a 2-person jacuzzi bathtub. Sometimes we'd spend the whole morning in the tub, where my nausea was somewhat relieved and Luke and Jaz were happy to play with little actual attention from me. The bath has also always been the best response to an early riser. When a toddler wakes up at 5:30 and simply won't go back to sleep, climbing into a warm tub can make the whole scene much more pleasant for a sleep-deprived mama.

Needless to say, the bathtub is a very important feature of any house we live in. Our new house has a pretty sweet old cast iron tub. It's not as long as the tub in our last house, but it's slightly wider and perhaps a bit deeper as well. The three kids fit well together (and Zeben has finally weaned himself from only taking baths with me to taking baths "alone" with his brothers).

Jaz has been having a really rough time at bedtime lately. I think it has to do with the new school situation, or maybe it's the new house, or maybe it's just the age. Regardless of the reason, as soon as dinner is over, he morphs into this other unfortunate version of himself. He throws things and acts as though he can't hear and kicks and screams. Yesterday evening I decided it was time to try out the new tub and see if a family bath might improve Jasper's state.

Thankfully, I fit! It was actually surprisingly roomy. No one was too squished and there was plenty of space for rearranging and adding hot water without worrying about burning anybody.

Jaz did soften up and melt into me for a while. Zeben nursed and Lukas entertained himself with bath toys. It was peaceful and lovely, a huge sigh of relief.

Unfortunately, once bath time was over, Jaz switched back into Nightmare Child Mode, and bedtime was just as difficult as it's been. But our family tub still served a purpose. The 20 minutes of warm water and skin-to-skin contact certainly lifted my spirits and I felt better able to handle Jasper's nightly tantrum having just experienced such loveliness with him. So while the bath wasn't exactly the magic solution I was hoping it might be, it still proved itself as a useful tool. One that I'm sure we'll be turning to more and more often as the temperature outside continues to drop.