And suddenly, bath time became fun

For the first two months of Holden's life, there were few things he hated more than taking a bath. And when I say hate, I mean HATE. Even the sponge bath sessions before his umbilical cord fell off were defined by screaming fits. In one of the first sessions in the actual tub, he paused from his crying long enough to, ugh, well, poop in the tub, which made the whole affair even more traumatic for Mike and me (yeah, it's gross, I know). We came to dread this whole chore so much that we would only bathe Holden twice a week--the minimum the books suggested for the winter months.

Then suddenly, at around 2 months, this began to happen:

Yup, Holden decided he actually likes baths. Funny thing is--I read in one of our books that babies would "begin enjoying baths" at around 8 or 9 weeks, but I never really believed it because I knew so many other friends whose babies enjoyed taking baths from the very beginning. I just thought that we had the weird baby who hated to be naked (he used to HATE diaper changes too), or that he had some strange fear of water. Thankfully, neither is the case.

Of course Mike and I both have our theories as to why he now likes his bath time. He stopped really fussing when we started draping a warm wet towel over him to keep him a little bit warmer, so I'm convinced this had something to do with it.

Mike, meanwhile, swears it has to do with the ambiance. Every time Holden has smiled during bath time we've had jazz music on. And perhaps he has a point on this one, because notably, jazz was playing when little Holden was born!