first bath

Everyone else was away at movies or the grocery store, and his brothers were quietly attending to a computer game. His bath tub, designed to absorb and hold the heat of the water, had been floating in the tub for a few minutes already. I lit a candle, laid out a towel and some baby soap, and undressed him. He screamed to be naked. I tried to hold him tightly against me but he was already too upset. Even with his ear pressed against my heart, he was flailing in rhythms, eyes rolling, just like his parents are prone to seize in our Tourette and epileptic moments. I brought him to my breast and after he calmed enough, got him to nurse. When his belly was finally full, I climbed into the water, holding him. He cried again as I stood in the tub. Thinking I'd better just get it over with, I dipped him into his floating tub-within-a-tub. As I tentatively relaxed my grib, he sunk into it enough to make water flow through it and rise up just to his chest. Immediately the crying stopped. He opened his eyes, surprised to feel so good, then calmed to a meditative state of such depth that I was afraid I'd misjudged the depth of the clear water and he was drowned. But no, his face had never gone under. I marvelled at the design of this thing -- holding heat, floating, rocking on the waves, immersing him just a bit. It was a spa for newborns. Steamy heat poured through the bathroom vent, causing the candle light to flicker romantically. By such light I watched, hands hovering near, as my week-old son fell asleep in the water, rocked by the waves of his own heartbeat. It was a dreamy first bath.