*hugs*

I did that with my son until the bath tub poop incident we no longer discuss.

As always a beautiful description, Linda. Enjoy while you can.

Beautiful, as always.

Aww – I loved bathtime with C – but our new house doesn’t have the soaking tub and C can barely fit into his average-sized tub, what with all the toys he MUST HAVE with him. But the real question is – was the corner tub worth finding the lube tube?

I marvel at my girls’ bodies, too. How they have grown up before me. But I don’t bathe with them, too afraid of the floaters! :)

Yep, those are the good days. Although I was more of a shower kinda girl and loved taking my naked babies in with me. My 4 yo daughter still hops in with me but those days are waning too, I’m sure.

Aww….I miss those days. I showered with my now eight year old until shortly after 4 yrs old. Loved it. “Two birds with one stone” and the oh-so-cuteness of her tubby little soapy body. But yeah, the day becomes painfully clear when the end is near. *sigh* Enjoy it while you can!

This is so beautiful. They grow up way too fast.

Any tips for doing that without flooding the bathroom floor? My boys (1 & almost 3 yrs) maybe haven’t outgrown the splashy water buffalo stage yet…?

Love this post. Bath time is so much fun. We’ve recently started doing all their baths in our big soaking tub and they love it. This time is so sweet, so frustrating, and moving so fast.

{sigh} so wonderful!

Sigh. Yep. I get in our little tub (so jealous of your big tub) almost every night with my 16 month old son. It is almost primal how much I love seeing his little chubby belly.

Now if I could just get him to stop drinking the soapy water…

Ah…the double opposite hair swirl. My son has those too. God love ’em but those things make haircuts quite difficult when they get to the stage that they care about how their hair looks.

I love that this life of raising kids comes retrofitted with these small moments. There is NO WAY I’d survive parenting without them. And they are always so well timed, no? Just when I’m about ready to grab my keys and LEAVE FOREVER there is a moment, a snuggle, a funny interlude…

Your writing is beautiful, as always! Thanks for sharing.

I have one of those tubs too and love it. I take my almost 4 yr old grand daughter in the tub with me when ever I have her (at least once a week) and we have a blast playing n the bubbles, love it.

So beautfiul.

I would love to take a bath with my kids, but our tub is rather small (they barely fit in it together now) and my four year old has already informed me that my bum is too big for the bath tub. Oh, the pain.

I just took a bath with my three year old last night. After a day filled with battles and snot and frustrations, there we were giggling and making each other’s hair into shampoo mohawks. It (almost) completely washed away the whole day.

The only problem? My bathroom was apparently made for midgets- the tub will only fill about 10 inches deep. We desperately need a bathroom remodel and I’m putting a soaking tub on our must-have list.

Loved this. My baby is turning four on Wednesday (hyperventilating *just* a little) and bath time for us is most sacred. Like you, I know we won’t be doing this much longer. But for now, I love that it is just the two of us–no iPhone or Twitter or Google reader or Facebook (sounds horrible, I know.) We just talk and play and I admire the beauty of this gorgeous little boy that I bore.

@Maria

“my four year old has already informed me that my bum is too big for the bath tub”

On the plus side, she could tell you that your “bum is stinky”, like she says to me.

Oh wait, women would rather have their bum be stinky than big, right?

Nevermind.

Thank God for bathtime because so much that happens thoughout the day gets erased when you mix bubbles, water and children. Baths have kept me from chucking my child out the window, and instead I choose the option of reading to her in my lap while I secretly smell her justwashed hair, feeling renewed.

There is a moment when my son gets out of the tub and is racing around nekkid. He always reminds me of a little frog, all skinny little arms and legs. I love them right after a bath – thier tummy’s round and full from dinner, smelling so clean and sweet…

And now I am crying because I know these precious moments will end too soon.

I will miss the shampoo horns and dolphin noises and possibly even the knowledge that I am bathing in someone else’s urine.

When my nephew was small, I was so in love with the nape of his neck, somehow completely different from his sister’s.

AH!,…the way you can put things into words makes me BAWL and wish I could explain things like that. How could I be sitting here blubbering about taking a bath at 3:00 in the afternoon? But yet, you write with such clarity and detail…..over A BATH. Your words are powerful and the love you have for your little dudes eminates(sp?) through everything you write.

I have always preferred a bath to a shower. From the time Riley was old enough to hold his head up, we have bathed together – We have not missed a single bath in well over a year. It is my favorite part of the day as it is a time reserved for just us. Every night around 6:30 we sit together in shallow tepid water while I gob on conditioner and try to comb the mats out of his wispy fine hair. He tells me in his baby babble about his day and doggies and kitties and Elmo’s World. And he points and says “buba!” and lays back in my lap giggling while I blow bubbles at the ceiling. I can’t imagine a time when we have to give all of that up. I’m guessing it will get weird when he develops body hair.

So sweet. Enjoy it all.

I L.O.V.E. bathing with my kids in our soaker tub! It is a great moment… now that they are a little older, mommy wears a bathing suit but I hope that I will be able to continue to share that with them for as long as possible!

I can feel this deep down in my middle somewhere. That aching place.

And not just because I would kill a barrel of kittens for a soaking tub.

I must have a bath every day. Sometimes I skip a day, but then that builds up a bath-debt. If many days go by with only far-inferior-showering, I end up throwing the baby at my partner, closing the door demonstratively (closing a bathroom door, like ALL THE WAY, is a dramatic act in a household when children are involved. unless you’re one of those fancies that does their business in “private”) and having a monster of a soak. Like adding new hot water multiple times and finishing a novel kind of soak.

Oh yeah, I bathe with the baby sometimes. But as he would nurse all day and all night if I let him it’s hard to distract him from the boobs.

I gazed at Thalia tonight and blurted out, “you’re a girl. A beautiful girl.” She’s only 4 but the chub is yielding to cheekbones and I’m floored that I produced such a being.

Thanks for jarring a nice memory. Beautiful post Linda, as always.

what a gorgeous description. i had to laugh at the timing b/c just last night the husband tried to bathe with our 2 year old for the first time. the toddler would have nothing to do with that and asked he could instead take a bath with mommy. i’ve never done that (out of simple routine) but you make it sound so lovely i just might!

Yeah I had to stop sharing baths with my son a couple of years ago and I miss it.

thanks linda, this made a long day worthwhile.