The Big Bathe

My partner, my husband, my man. He's been living far away from us going on four weeks now. We're all still together, it's not like that. We're just physically apart temporarily. Until the rest of us move up there with him.

This solo parenting gig has been hard, y'all. On all of us. Place a big ol' major remodeling cherry on top and naturally, things begin to give.

I've definitely made some tweaks to the daily grind of our family life. I eat standing up most meals and the boys go to bed with dirty bottomed feet most nights. Balls are being dropped but we're keeping our heads afloat. And we're happy. Optimistic.

But we aren't without new challenges and problems.

Motherhood in general has readjusted my standards for personal hygiene. Long gone are the days of daily showers, much less luxuriously long ones. Lately with the all these extra duties i.e., things I'm doing that my partner would be doing if he were here, have seriously pushed those standards even lower.

With the manual labor and the exercising and the regular raising of two young ones muck, there's not enough activated charcoal in the state to keep my stank at bay. And that's how Fridays have become my big bathe.

Our family already has a Friday tradition. We go out. Always Mexican. Always margaritas. Too frequently probably, queso. But there's a new tradition in town. And it's all about washing the week off of mama in peace.

It's not my only shower all week. I'm not that hard up. Or gross. I get a quick dip in often enough. But this is different.

This is without time limits or hesitations about grooming this or that. The loofa, the pumice, the razor...oh, my! I use it all. I use it up. I rub it down. It's a scrubbing of Victorian tub time proportions.

And when I'm done, this mama shines like the top of the Chrysler Building.

Mostly on the inside.

Everywhere it counts.