Special Prayer

Lord, let me be thankful and find joy in bathing my baby boy – he’s growing so fast. No longer tiny and helpless, but now full to my arms with a rollicking will of his own. Thank you for the sight of his back, straight and sturdy in the tub, and for the wild abandon of his antics – his mad splashing, his impassioned clutch of floating ship and ball. Thank you for the foolishness of a chewed washcloth dribbling daily down his chin, and the flirtatious peeking of his eyes over the tub’s rim. Thank you for my son, Lord, my plump, brazen elf of a son, to be soaped and rinsed as he scolds and sings and chatters in his own expressive jargon. My son to be gathered warm and wet into a fluffy towel, to be patted and powdered and oiled. I lift him up in a joyous little gesture of offering, and he dances on tiptoe with nimble nakedness. Thank you for this son to be wrestled into a diaper. For he keeps flopping over, scrambling to his knees – it is like trying to put pants on the wind. Yet you made mothers strong-fingered and determined. We must win the kicking contest against socks and shoes, we must subdue our children into clothes and pajamas. And our reward is to carry a son at last, sweet and fresh, clasping our neck, riding royally off to bed like a king. Thank you for this child and this happy daily struggle that is half duty, half delight. And whenever it seems a chore, help me to remember how awfully fast little boys get too big to be bathed or maneuvered into anything.