Today Fraser had his very last bath in the baby bathtub. He was, as usual, very excited about the prospect of taking his bath. However, as you can see, he really had outgrown the baby bathtub about a month ago but super organized mommy hadn't quite gotten around to buying a good "transitional tub" to take him from the baby bathtub to the grownup bathtub. Now I know that anyone with kids who is reading this is thinking, "What the hell do you need a transitional tub for?!? I mean, a "baby bathtub" is bad enough! We washed our kids in the sink, with Brillo pads, and they turned out just fine. Just stick the damn kid in the regular bathtub." Well, you nameless cynic, there are two main reasons. First, as Fraser is still quite small in the greater scheme of human size, he doesn't take up much room and therefore doesn't need much water, certainly not the amount necessary to fill up the the big tub (a few inches anyway) to get clean. Why is conserving water so important? Well, from an environmental and communal perspective, "Practicing water conservation on a regular basis can prevent or postpone the building of new water supply infrastructure. When utilities are able to reduce demand, they can frequently extend the life of existing infrastructure, saving their consumers the cost of building or renovating. Conservation can also reduce the amount of water that needs to be processed by wastewater treatment plants, again preserving infrastructure and also reducing the amount of waste discharged to streams and rivers. Finally, sound water use practices can make us more resilient during times of drought, negating the need for mandatory interventions." From a more personal perspective, conserving water is important so Andy's eyeballs don't fall out of his head the next time the water bill arrives and he points out, again, how much our expenditure in that department has increased since Fraser arrived. (He does, however, at these moments begin to understand where those previously-considered-outrageous estimates like "It costs 13,430 dollars to raise an infant from age 0 to one year" come from.)

The second reason why having a transitional tub is crucial at this juncture is that in our lovely antique colonial house we only have a lovely antique claw footed bathtub which must serve as both bathtub and shower. To make this work we have one of those stunning metal ovals over the tub from which to hang our equally stunning shower curtain. As anyone who has been unlucky enough to shower in one of these God forsaken contraptions can tell you, the moment you climb into the shower all sides of the curtain immediately begin to drift in toward you until, total suffocation only moments away, you begin beating them back with your shampoo bottle, fists, or whatever other weapon presents itself. To avoid such perilous combat we have learned to attach the curtain to the sides of the tub with magnets. While this approach does make an already aesthetically revolting setup truly, deeply, madly hideous, it also keeps the curtain from touching the showerer (mostly). Where was I going with this? Oh right, so if one wants to take a bath in the actual bathtub one must remove all the magnets and pull the curtain out of the tub. When the bath in complete the curtain and magnets must be replaced. This, like walking a tightrope, twirling a baton, eating with chopsticks, and marriage, sounds easy until you attempt it. With a transitional tub we get to the skip the whole de-magnetizing, re-magnetizing, project.

Fraser survived his final dip into the baby bathtub very well, and is looking forward with great joy to Sunday (next scheduled bath day), when he will get to try out his brand new transitional tub which Keekey and Grandpa were thoughtful enough to send him as a Three Kings present. What?? He's part Hispanic, it's a totally valid gift giving occasion!