I’d like you to meet the dirtiest kid on the block, my two year-old toddler Vann. The kid who constantly needs his hands and face washed. The kid who dirties 3 outfits a day and needs a nail brush to get the dirt out of his fingernails daily. Seriously…this kid stinks. Like dirt. And sometimes other things.
He is my three bath a day kid.
He wakes up…dirty.
How he does this, I do not know. He must be having dirty food fights with his stuffed animals while I am sleeping.
I have to bathe him every morning. Typically morning baths are 30 minutes long. Happy as a pig in a sty, he’ll play all morning in the bath if I let him. He comes out smelling baby fresh. Heaven.
Oh how I love that smell. If only it would last.
Our morning routine is usually pretty easy going. He insists on milk in a sippy and a bowl of dry cereal. Nothing too messy. Then we play around the house, watch cartoons, play outside in the sandbox, race trucks about the kitchen and do some laundry. Later we eat lunch and run some errands around town.
And already, he is filthy. His hair is usually the worse. It usually has some sort of food caked in it, and it is stuck to his cheeks. Dirt is smeared across his face and his clothes….are not the fresh.
Where did that baby fresh smell go?
So, I bathe him again…if time permits. Thirty more minutes of bath time fun and I get my squeaky clean, shampoo smelling baby back.
At least for a few hours….
Somehow, between school pick up, baseball games, homework and dinner prep, that wonderful baby fresh smell disappears. Leaving in its place the smell of a dirty little boy who has enjoyed his day. Everything about it, without a care of keeping himself clean.
It’s true what they say you know. The baby and toddler year pass so very quickly. You blink and your little baby is all grown up.
I know one day I will miss the smell of this little dirty boy. One day he will be all grown up and will smell of teenager, then young adult and all too soon…a grown man. That dirty little boy smell…I will want it back.
I know how much I will long for it, and how it will hurt that I’ll never get it back.
I know this because…
Because right now….I miss the baby fresh smell of my little baby. The little baby that has grown up into my sweet little dirty boy.
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