Showing posts with label baths. Show all posts
Showing posts with label baths. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Stinky Feet

There is just no nice way to say it: my babies have stinky feet.

My older kid, the 3 1/2-year old Juban Princeling, has grown out of it, but I remember how bad his feet smelled as a baby. And now my younger kid, the 5-month old Duke of Juban, has the same stinky feet.

I don't understand it. It's not like the baby puts on his old sneakers and goes for a jog. He doesn't play in mud, and as far as I know he isn't friends with any skunks. I don't let him play in garbage. He doesn't even sit up yet, much less stand, much less walk, much less walk around all day in stinky shoes.

The irony is that the Princeling does wear shoes all day, sometimes old sneakers with no socks, but his feet smell fine. Well, maybe not fine, but they certainly don't smell like cat diarrhea anymore.

And yet.



The Juban Princeling's dirty feet, circa July 2009. At least
these feet had a reason for being stinky.


When I give him a bath - which he has finally come to terms with (Mommy-1, Baby-0) - I wash between his toes and scrub his little feet. Then, without putting lotion or socks or ANYthing on his feet, a few minutes later they stink like a homeless person stuffed Camembert cheese in his armpits.

How is this even possible?

My theories:


  • If babies' heads smell so good, then the law of balance dictates they have stinky feet
  • The Duke is making cheese with his feet in his crib (unlikely, since I have a video monitor and can see him when he's sleeping) (unless we're talking about a "Speed"-like trick here?)
  • Ghost Mommy is soaking his feet in turpentine and sour milk during his naps
  • The MTA has found a way to bottle that special New York subway station smell and has filled invisible baby shoes with it and put those shoes on my baby the last time we were on the subway
  • That one time we took him to New Jersey stuck to him, but only his feet
  • He's found a way to vomit via his toes
  • It's a defense mechanism to keep me from eating up his yummy chubby little baby feets and toesies

Ideas? Advice? Commiseration?

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

An Open Letter: Re: Baths

Attn:
American Civil Liberties Union
Amnesty International
President Obama
The United Nations Children's Fund
New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly
Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz


My name is the Duke of Juban. I live in Park Slope, Brooklyn, New York, and I am twelve weeks old. I write to you today to bring to your attention a most grave injustice: my baths.


The woman who proposes to be my mother gives me baths. I am not sure if you are aware or not, but baths involve my ancient mortal foe, water. Water on my skin! In my hair! This woman tricks me into trusting her with my love and devotion and well-being by feeding me, playing with me, holding me, and putting me to sleep, and just as I start to trust her she thrusts me into a vat of warm water and cleans me. 


I know. I know!!!


The water hitting my skin may as well be boiling tar. My bath chair may as well be lined with needles. The soap she uses may as well be broken glass. The washcloth may as well have teeth. And the towel she dries me off with may as well be made of the most abrasive of sandpaper - you know, the kind they use to sand off old paint. 




"Torture of St. John the Evangelist" photo from
http://www.occesussex.co.uk/apps/blog/entries/show/935880-st-john-before-the-latin-gate




After twelve long weeks on this godforsaken earth, my so-called "loving mother" has not taken the hint. Baths are a wretched, heinous form of child abuse. Had the good lord wanted me to smell good, she would not have crusted my ears with spit-up, or peppered my scalp with cradle cap, or put that stinky lint between my fingers and toes, or made my butt go poop.


Never, in the history of babykind, has any child suffered as greatly as I do. Never before has any infant been forced to endure the kind of sadism I encounter on a weekly, sometimes twice or thrice weekly, basis! I fear for my future. I fear for my very soul.


Baths are unnatural, inhuman, and a disgrace to humankind. As a helpless minor I demand you do something to stop this evil woman and her baths!


Humbly yours,
The Duke of Juban, Baby, American Citizen, Future Voter, Brooklyn Borough Resident, Bath Victim