Scrubbing Bubbles or Why I Love My Wife

I have a few confessions to make. First, I’m not the cleanest guy in the world. When I lived with a few roommates, our bathroom may have gone an entire year without actually being cleaned. Second, I’ve never scrubbed a bathroom until it was totally clean. I know some would say this makes me a bad husband, but I’ve just never done it. I would if I was asked, but Kristen has always taken care of it. Third, because of my first two confessions, I realized a few weeks ago how amazing my wife is.

Kristen’s parents were coming into town for a few days to see us, so naturally there was cleaning to do. I had to talk Kristen out of cleaning the bathroom; she insisted she would only use cleaners that were non-toxic, but I was not going to let her kneel down to clean the tub, and I knew that something good and toxic would be required to get our tub clean, so I told her I was going to do it.

Our tub seems to be constructed of some material that collects and preserves dirt and grime for all eternity. I’m fairly sure someone should look into this technology, as I am sure those who preserve dirt (Oscar the Grouch?) would love to understand exactly how this works. All I know is, the tub is hard to get clean. Really hard.

Before going to work on the car, I left a few inches of bleach water in the tub in hopes of loosening up the grime. Returning two hours later, I drained the tub to find it relatively unchanged. It took almost an entire can of Scrubbing Bubbles, some Kaboom Shower Cleaner and multiple scrubbings with a brush that I normally use to clean road tar off my car tires, and the tub looked pretty good. But I still had to give it another once-over to make it look presentable. All this took, well, I don’t really know how long, but it was a long time…and I hadn’t even started on the rest of the bathroom.

My wife has tirelessly cleaned the tub and bathroom since we were first married (and, actually, she did most of the bathroom cleaning when I moved out of my bachelor apartment with those roommates) and I am fully convinced that she, pregnant belly and all, would have scrubbed the shower all day if I had not intervened. That’s the kind of servant heart she has, and that’s how lucky I am to have her. So, what does this have to do with our baby? Well, I can't help but thank God that he has given me Kristen as a wife and mother to our baby. Her selfless love and determined patience will certainly will be tested by this little one, but as they grow up, they'll see their mother living out Proverbs 31 each and every day.

I don’t think that I ever realized how big of a deal cleaning a shower is, but it reminded me how blessed I am to be married to and having a baby with my wonderful wife.