If you were someone else’s baby I’d say you needed a bath right now.
You smell like the milk that dribbled from your mouth when you were half asleep this morning and still lingers in your onesie. You smell like baby barf that I couldn’t sleep quite wash from the fold of your little neck. You smell like autumn wind and maybe a little of dog.
A ring of dirt sits under your chins, your hair is a little stiff where the dog licked it. There’s a tiny piece of green cattail laced into your red brown hair from me pulling you onto my lap to cuddle as I wove a basket. You have dirt between your tiny toes because your dad dipped them into a mound of cool sand .
If you were someone else’s baby I’d be judging your mom right now
But you’re my baby.
Baths mean bedtime to you. So, although bath time, together with outside time and dad coming home from work time, is your favourite time of day, we’ll wait until bedtime when the chances of you getting dirty again are minimal to get you really clean. Right now I’ll squish you 10 more times before I get around to buckling you into your stroller. Then we’ll head back outside to get more wind blown and more dog kisses and a little layer of dust and sunshine on our skin. Because you’re not someone else’s baby.
