You can tell he's raised by a woman if...

I recently made an effort to a) conserve my expensive girly body wash, which Mark uses like it's water, and b) save Mark from future embarrassment in the locker room ("Hey, dude, are you using night-blooming jasmine body gel?"). I decided to buy Mark his very own man-centric scented body wash. 

It was a hard choice. The men's soap aisle is very different from the women's--most products are single-purpose shampoo/body washes, which made me giggle because that little fact singularly defines the difference between men and women. (You'd have a hard--no, impossible!--time selling a hybrid shampoo/body wash to any woman I know!)

The alternative was the Axe product line, which markets itself not as soap, but as animal magnetism in a bottle, guaranteed to make you irresistible to women. That is not the goal for my darling 11-year-old boy.

So, after studying each and every bottle on the shelf, I settled on this one:

I handed Mark the bottle ever-so-casually.

"This is for you," I said. "I mean, if you want to start using body wash made for men..."

I could see his little chest swell with pride. He puffed up, and in his deepest voice, replied, "Heck yeah, I do!" He held the bottle, and strutted around the room.

"I have MAN soap!" he bellowed proudly.

And then he stopped, fretting. He turned the bottle over, searching the label, and voiced a question only a boy without a father would ask.

"Will it still keep my skin soft?" he asked.

I assured him it would ("See, it's made by Dove soap"). And then I realized I still have much work to do.

Soap is for sissies

Here's what I've learned about personal hygiene from my son: It's waaaaaay overrated.

I disagree with that philosophy, which makes for interesting discussions around our house. I'm the kind of person who thinks the phrase "Take a shower" implies using all of the following ingredients: water, shampoo, soap. Mark adheres to a different belief, quite popular with the third-grade crowd: that the first ingredient is sufficient (unless of course, I've bought some fancy new Bath & Body Works soap; then, he uses half the bottle).

Case in point: last night's shower. Mark, who is destined to become a successful lawyer, argued that he didn't need a shower, he took one last week. He grumbled and groaned, and finally, grudgingly, got in. Twenty-five minutes later, I told him to get out, and the little lawyer argued that he just got in.

He finally emerged, dripping wet, and smiled. He held a yellow rubber duck up to me. "Look, Mom!" he said. "I washed the duck!"

I smiled back, until I noticed something--the duck was very clean, but Mark's face was as dirty as it was before the shower.

"Let me see your face," I said, and his smile vanished.

"I washed it!" he yelled. He wouldn't let me close enough to look.

But our bathroom is small, and he couldn't escape. I gave him a once-over, realizing he hadn't washed his hair, either. Despite the long shower, he was still the same grubby boy, just a little wetter.

I sighed. We have a water shortage in our county, but I didn't realize we had a soap shortage as well.

"Back in you go," I told him, pointing to the tub. He protested, but finally climbed back in, washed his hair, and emerged, once again, with a dirty face. (What do they say about leading a horse to water??)

I finally gave up. "Brush your teeth," I told him. Then I handed him a wash cloth and watched him scrub his face, while he scowled.

That's my Mark, in a nutshell. He's the kind of kid who must wash his face every night at bedtime, whether he showered or not. He's the kind of kid who spends so much time washing his rubber duck, he forgets to wash himself.

And now, I'm the kind of mom who's very specific; the kind of mom who now says, "Take a shower AND USE THE SOAP!!"