Behind the Ears

I have to confess that my children are probably less clean than they ought to be. We wash hands and faces religiously, but thanks to extracurricular activities, nightly bath time is far less nightly than it once was...

We have been in swim classes twice a week since March, so I have become much less legalistic about what constitutes a 'bath.' I didn't realize what an impression this was making on my children until I tried to re-establish a routine last week. It was met with much weeping and gnashing of teeth from R in particular.

Friday night we had a bath in preparation for the parties Saturday. Much to the boys' chagrin, we bathed them again Saturday night because we were so very sweaty from all of our outdoor revelry. The following afternoon they attended a 'water war' birthday party that involved a water slide greased up with baby shampoo. R breathlessly informed me that thanks to "two baffs in a woe and a bubble baff on da slide" he was "not going to need a baff for a whole monf!"

I regretfully informed him it did not work that way.

Last night as he was bathing I pointed out the brown dirtiness behind his ears as proof that thorough, frequent bathing was necessary. He didn't say much in reply. 

Apparently he spent all night pondering it, because this morning as he settled on his stool for breakfast he said the following:

"Mom, you know what I figured out? That bwown stuff you saw behind my ee-yars is NOT dirwt. It is just they-wa for when I get to be a man like Daddy."

I was really trying to track with his line of reasoning, but he lost me. 

"What do you mean?" 

"You know that hair-wy stuff that gwows in his ee-yars and on his chin? The bwown stuff is jus' mine getting weady."

They have an answer for everything, don't they? I think we will keep bathing just in case!