One Single Impression: Bathing

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Saturday Night Bathing

Each Saturday night

Mum bathed her little babies

still bathes them now grown

Wash behind their ears

she scrubs their behinds with soap

she scratches her head

She didn't admit

no babies were there to wash

not one could be seen

She looked high and low

wouldn't tell she'd thrown them out

with the bath water

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Poem Copyright

© 2012 Jimmiehov
All Rights Reserved

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Brian Miller of Haiku Water brings us this week's prompt, 'bathing'
Find more poems using 'bathing' prompt word at One One Single Impression
This poem is also registered with Open Link Mondays at Mama Z's Real Toads
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Note:
1.  This is an old saying, "... to throw out the baby with the bath water." 
I have heard that it originated when in England the whole family bathed in one tub of scarce water.  They went by age and sex, generally the grandfather was first, then the grandmother, followed by the father, etc, until the baby was last.  Often times the water was so dirty that the mother (doing the bathing) could not see the baby in the dirty water and so she threw out both.

2.  The saying has come to mean one of two things, I prefer the second meaning below.  Neither of these come out in my poem and I do not intend that they apply to it:

[a] Throw out the baby with the bath water is an idiomatic expression used to suggest an avoidable error in which something good is eliminated when trying to get rid of something bad, or in other words, rejecting the essential along with the inessential.

[b] A slightly different explanation suggests that this flexible catchphrase has to do with discarding the essential while retaining the superfluous because of excessive zeal. In other words, the idiom is applicable not only when it's a matter of throwing out the baby with the bath water, but also when someone might throw out the baby and keep the bath water. (from Wikidedia)

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