The Bath of all Baths: Fourth Trimester Self Care

Let’s remember it together:
The kind of morning where your sheets are drenched in hormonal sweat—the sweat that smells like a classroom full of first-graders and all their farts and sneezes and not so much the kind of sweat that smells like body odor or good sex.
The kind of morning where you wake up startled by the fact that you maybe slept and frantically sit up checking all the spots you might’ve put your baby to maybe sleep, too. The crib? No. The bassinet? No. Ah, the Moses basket.
Cha Ching!
The kind of morning where your teeth have grown more hair than your armpits and it’s starting to dreadlock into the texture of your smile.
​The kind of morning where you have a crick in your neck, a crick in your shoulder, a crick in your elbow, and three fingers on your right hand are inexplicably numb.
The kind of morning where the first thing you think about is FOB/child support/old bills/new bills/spoiled milk/taxes and a bath.

Let’s sit through it together:
Today I took the kind of bath that lasted over fifteen minutes. The kind of bath third trimesters everywhere dream of.
The kind of bath where you’re no longer afraid of your razor and your ‘gina doesn’t tremble at its sight.
The kind of bath where six weeks of leg debris is shaved off, revealing the fresh flesh of a 25 year old on a 34 year old.
The kind of bath where your imagination can run wild so long as your flexibility can follow and you can reshape your ladyscaping into any shape or symbol you like because time and visibility are on your side.
The kind of bath where you fall in love with your new and improved lady bits again, marvel at their reconstruction, pat them on their little labial backs and reunite in friendship and forgiveness.
The kind of bath where you get to deep condition those pregnancy locks that haven’t fallen out yet before you tie it all in a giant knot on top of your head.
The kind of bath where after you get to use the yummy smelling lotions and even tweeze that one chin hair that’s decided to appear with new hormones.
*sigh*

The kind of bath that’s interrupted by the living room volume of Willie Nelson... and my Mom brain thinks the harmonica is my Nugget wailing in my absence.

We are near three weeks out from D-Day (Dorothy Day) and routines are being hoped for every day. We ebb and flow together, we aren’t stir crazy or lonely, and we’re bonded beyond belief.
When I self-care, I’m takin care of us. Nugget is warm and fed and nourished and although that’s all my soul needs, is really... really nice to have smooth legs once again.

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