Cents didn't want to take her bath tonight and miss playing with her cousins. She informed me she wasn't even dirty. I reminded her it had been awhile since we washed her hair. So she agreed to take a bath "but we are only going to wash the parts that are dirty." I washed a few others as well.
My Mom used to throw a bunch of us in the tub at the same time. We Four Littles did just about everything together. Then my brother, John would get his turn alone. I can still here the refrains of my Dad yelling things like, "Use soap this time!" up the staircase. In those moments, when your parents come on over and possess you, I've found myself quoting this line to a boy or two of mine. And at the dinner table, I can hear the echo of, "your paws are like the paws of an animal."
On what day did we become our parents? Why did no one warn us, why didn't we listen, why didn't we run??? I can remember the first moment I felt I had become my Mother. And fittingly for this bath story it does involve water. When Buck was about 2 year old, we were in Russia. My friend Galya invited us to go to her Mother's dacha. Before you think of some nice cabin or get away this is not what this was. This was an over 100 year old cabin on an island in Lake Onega. Anyone we knew lucky enough to have a dacha used as much of it as possible to grow food for the winter. Any free summer days were spent working this mini farm and then relaxing a bit. You know relaxing while you haul and boil your own water, use an outhouse, chop lumber for the old woodstove kinda relaxing. Anyway, we get on this little boat that can hold about 4 people, a couple bags of supplies, and apparently no life vests! Half way across the lake the motor dies. Yep, that is when I knew that I'd become my Mother. I was just overcome by the worry of carring for this little foolish guy who would have climbed overboard just to go exploring. They got the engine going again and we had a wonderful dacha day.
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