Little People in the Tub

I wrote this about 2 1/2 years ago. It was good for me to read it again, things are a bit easier in the bath time routine now. Ian can handle it by himself now and the three of them won't even fit in the tub together anymore.
My little people are growing fast!

After dinner tonight I washed the dishes, bathed “Dirty Gert” and “Stinky Pete”. (Those are the names I call the boys when they need a bath.) Got their pajamas on, switched the laundry, nursed Nolan, bathed Nolan and put him to sleep. Got the boys to sleep, found clean work clothes for Chris, folded some towels and finally went to take a bath myself. Right before I went into the bathroom I said to Chris, “When they are asleep I feel like a good mom. When they are awake sometimes I don’t feel like I’m such a good mom.” With that on my mind, I kneeled down to lift the baby tub out of the big tub and I see, sitting on top of the blue Diego bath mat, all these “Little People”.  The Fisher Price “Little People.” There were about 10 of them sitting in the bottom of the tub. The boys like to play with them when they take a bath. Ryan lines them up on the little shelf for the soap and says, “Ladies and Gentlemen”, like he is announcing something. As I am taking them out of the tub I realize what the Lord had been trying to show me for about a week now. It hit me so hard it brought tears to my eyes. I am not going to have “little people” in my tub forever…. Soon my little people are going to be young men, taking showers, with hairy armpits and caterpillar mustaches. Deep voices (if they are anything like their daddy) are going to come out of my babies mouths and they will call me “mom” and not “mommy”. And soon after that they will only be showering at home on weekends home from college or holidays. Then probably never again will they be in my tub. They will have tubs in their houses that their new wives will have bought a shower curtain for. My boys won’t be my boys anymore…. They will be men.

Like I said the Lord started this revelation in my heart last week, it just took a while to sink in, I am slow, I admit it, and this isn't the first time I needed this reminder. A few of my “more experienced” mom friends (notice I did not say older!) were talking about laundry and how one day the laundry piles will be smaller. Thank you, Michelle, Teresa and Donna. And my friend Liza was able to stop by for a few mins. last wed. night and as she left she reminded me to “Enjoy the season, it goes by so quickly.” She is a mother of 4 boys under 10 years old, two of them are twins, wow! Sat. afternoon I was dropping Ian off at drama practice at church and my friend Michelle asked me how I was doing….Sat. was one of my “not my days”, and I don’t think I hid it from my face very well. She told me that it will get easier and how now she asks her girls to just sit and talk with her for a while. Then just yesterday my friend Connie commented on our new fence and how it reminded her of when her two boys were younger and would play outside until it was dark out. Now one of them is “A Marine!” (said like the Pink Ladies do in Grease). So all those nudges along the way brought me to the little people, I want little people in my tub for as long as they will fit. I wanted so badly to be a mommy; my heart ached for it before I became one. I don’t want to ruin one moment of time with my boys because it “isn’t my day”.

I was reading in my new favorite book by Dr. Laura Schlessinger, called, ‘In Praise of Stay-at-Home Moms” and these few lines hit me: “One day they can’t walk, the next day they’re running. One day they can’t talk, the next day they won’t stop. Everything they see, smell, hear and do is a new miracle-enjoy the ride, even though the house isn’t perfect and your neighbor has more jewelry.”