Saturday Night Baths

Did your grandparents ever tell you tales of the way things used to be?  Wash on Monday, iron on Tuesday...and ending the week with baths on Saturday? 

Well, here in good ole' 2016, we still do Saturday night baths in this house.  Not for the sake of tradition, but it is for the sake of being clean for church on Sunday morning.

After a week of summer, my kids are coated in layers of sweat, sunscreen, sand, chlorine, dirt, peanut butter, jelly, and Kool-Aid.  In fact, Saturday night may be the only bath they take all week.

I am not against cleanliness.  I'm all for it! 

The problem lays with timing.  And our summer schedule.

If we play all day and swim before bed, they're passably clean.  Baths can wait for another day.

If we play all day and go to the drive-in movies, they go straight to bed.

If we play all day and we're planning to go to the water park the next morning, we skip baths.

If the lightning bugs are begging to be caught, we skip baths and fill a jar with twenty or so glowing friends, releasing them into the night before crawling into bed.


So, you see, I only insist on baths Saturday nights, so that once a week, our children lay down their sleepy heads smelling of sweet shampoo, and their angelic faces clear of summer debris.


"Oh - there you are!"  I say. 

They giggle, "Oh mom!" and close their eyes, dreaming sweet summer dreams.


As it should be.

Baths can be taken any old time.


Long live summer!!