Splish Splash

My children are much like many other children.  They love to get dirty!  They love to get in the dirt with the water hose and get mud all over their clothes.  They play gleefully, dancing and prancing around, making mud pies, trying to feed them to each other.

Fortunately for me, they also love to take baths.  If it's time for one of them to take a bath, they all want to take one.  It's a case of the Me Too Syndrome, which, in this case, can be a good thing.  So, after a day of hard work, I mean play, they traipse up the stairs.  The boys go to the hall bathroom and the girls to ours.  The two older ones are now able to get the bath water going all by themselves and can put in the soap and the toys, ready for a good, splashy clean fun time.

Of course I have to stay near, especially since Gabriela's not quite 2, but it is so refreshing to hear the splashing, the giggling, and all the fun imaginative games they play while they're getting all the day's grime off their little bodies.  I still have to make sure they use the soap and clean all the essential parts.  I still have to wash their hair and make sure all the shampoo gets rinsed out, but for the most part, I just sit back as they have fun, towels at the ready for when they climb out of the tub.

It's not always easy to get the children to come in out of the mud, especially if they have turned on that hose without permission and are trying to hide the fact that they have done so.  In fact, it can sometimes even sound like World War III in my yard because they protest the end of their water and mud play.  But all I have to do, when I can, is change my tune and tell them it's time to come in and take a bath.  Judging by their reaction, you would think the ice cream truck was passing by.  They turn off that water and high tail it into their perspective bathtubs and go at it.

I have so much to learn, and my children are the perfect teachers.  How often have I done something that I knew was not right, maybe not because it was the wrong thing to do, but just the wrong time.  That in itself made the actions wrong.  I didn't want to put an end to my motions; I just wanted to wallow in it.

But then comes the hope of the ability to redeem myself, to start all over again, to be clean again, as it may, and I thrill at the chance and rejoice in that opportunity.  Maybe it's not always the most fun, like when a child gets a little shampoo in her eyes, but with a towel, it gets wiped away quickly with no ill affect.  But then I relish in the cleansing flow that washes over me and gives me the chance to glow again.

It is a daily process, starting out clean, getting dirty, getting clean again.  It is a daily process of starting out fresh, making mistakes, and getting them washed away again.  Sometimes the stain may last a while, like when Benjamin decided to turn himself into a green tiger with a Sharpie, but eventually, that old skin washes away and the new comes to the surface.  The glee of being clean and fresh is exhilarating.  Yes, I know I will make mistakes again, but there is always the cleansing water to wash them all away, giving me a chance to start anew.