“Nobody Knows I’m a Scientist,” Whispers Child In Bathtub

There are some times of day in which it still feels like Kina is a baby. Those times, which do not include the many hours of scolding and sassy gossip we exchange with her, the bits where she eats great quantities of food at dinner, or the walks to school, are growing fewer and farther between. One of the last remaining such rituals is bathtime.

We first bathed Kina about a week after coming back from the hospital, even though she still had the floral baby smell thing going for her. She was a temperamental infant, which had us assuming the worst about this first bath. We watched four YouTube videos about bathing infants, filled a basin with warm water, and braced ourselves.

She loved it.

Almost six years later, the kid now fits neatly into our full tub. Our bathtimes with her are not long and drawn-out affairs, but we often get our best conversation in those moments, so Laurea and I have always looked forward to them. We’ve basically listened to her growing up in the tub, but we are always still present, and so in my head she is essentially a very articulate newborn.

I still wash her toes, play games with her, and sing songs as she splashes around. Not so different. I still wrap her tightly in a towel when we get her out of the tub, as I did after her very first bath. I still give her a little squeeze just after that and try to smell the top of her head. Just in case.

Someday, we will leave her to her own devices and bath rituals, and she will be a full-grown person, drying herself off and singing her own songs. That’s fine, too.

Until then, she’s the world’s least-renowned scientist, making creations and making animals feel better.

Muahahahaha.

Today’s Parade was supposed to be Saturn, but Kina got derailed after the sun, and now I think this page is mostly “crystals”. At the bottom, Kina wishes her friend Nicky a Happy Birthday and says “come back soon on Parade dot com.” You’ll just have to trust me on that.

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