Splish Splash

Luke spent his early months less than enamored with H2O! I think it all began just an hour or so after he was born, when after having been newly introduced to his post-fetal environment and having had his very first taste of liquid gold, he was unceremoniously dunked into a sink full of water that was definitely not womb temperature. He looked shocked for the very first time, and proceeded to scream with all the force that his newly broken in lungs could muster. It started right there. He hated water.

It took us months to get him used to the concept of a bath. He would not always scream, but the distasteful looks and pathetic whimpers melted our hearts in such a way that we resigned to only give our little buddy a drenching bath when it was absolutely necessary. In those early months, Lukas would be 'lucky' if he was bathed once every two or three weeks.
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We secretly felt like awful parents for this. We would cringe a bit and reveal this fact every once in a while, such as at PEPS meeting, half expecting to get some rather judgemental looks from other parents who had long since made a nightly bath part of their babies bedtime routine. We did receive some surprised looks, but since Luke didn't stink (those early breast milk diapers were interestingly devoid of the rotten poopy smell we expected) no one seemed to judge us too harshly. Thankfully!

At about eight months Luke started to relax a bit about getting wet. We were able to start bathing him at least once a week, and as we had hoped he actually started to enjoy himself. So much so, that about a month and a half ago we began giving him a nightly bath. It is not long (most nights we are in and out in about 1o minutes) but Lukas has gradually learned to have a jolly good time with his nightly bath. But he would not splash! This was despite our splashing in the tub to show him how to do so. We were not overly concerned since we did not start him on a nightly bath until relatively recently but we wanted a fun loving, water splashing baby.

Careful what you wish for! Lukas out of no where last night started to windmill splash his bathwater with such force that one might think Hurricane Katrina had finally made its way to the Northwest coast. He kept this up for a good couple of minutes, with pure delight on his face and two soaked but otherwise bemused parents shockingly looking on.

He repeated this again tonight! We again got a good drenching. I am no dummy (some may argue this). I think I am wearing a raincoat tomorrow night because Luke is definitely an H2O baby now.

If you travel to Seattle anytime soon, bring your bumbershoot!