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Springtime was finally arriving for which Splinter Hamato was grateful. The cold months of winter were giving way to the smell of fresh air and clean earth as the ice and snow gave way before the blazing rays of the mighty sun. The smell of the changing seasons wasn’t the only thing to reach Splinter’s sensitive nose.
Looking down at the four turtle tots playing quietly in front of him, Splinter couldn’t help but think that he would have a hard time losing them if they were to wander out of his sight. The pungent odor coming from them would be enough for him to follow and find them with ease.
As much as Splinter would have liked to bathe his sons more regularly to keep them from getting so smelly, it simply wasn’t an option during the winter. His sons were far more susceptible to the cold and Splinter wasn’t about to risk getting them sick just to give them a proper bath.
Now that the weather was warming up that was going to change. Leaving his sons to their play Splinter set out heating water on a small electric stove that he had scavenge. It took five pots of water to fill the basin that he had but it was worth it. This way Splinter could wash two of his sons at a time allowing him to keep his eyes on them easier.
Splinter gathered Don and Mikey first with only a few protests about having to leave their toys behind and placed them in the warm water. Very quickly the tots changed their minds about having to leave their toys and instead turned their attention to splashing in the clean water and enjoying the attentions of the washcloth cleaning the dirt and muck off of them.
Once Splinter deemed his two youngest sons clean he removed them from the basin and quickly dried them off before the water could cool on their skin and make them too cold. Leaving them back with their toys to keep them occupied Splinter placed his eldest tots in the basin for their bath. This bath involved a lot more splashing as Raph tried to help his father and kept dumping water over Leo’s head much to the older tot’s annoyance.
It was only when the second bath was finished and the turtles dried off that Splinter happened to glance around and notice that his youngest sons had been oddly quiet. Hurrying to find out what they were up to before they got into too much trouble had Splinter following the quiet giggles to the sewer pipes outside their home.
Out in the open sat his missing sons giving each other their own bath from the mud laying about. Splinter gave a large sigh and gathered up the two mischievous turtles and brought them back inside for a second bath much to their dismay. How children could get so dirty so quickly was something he would never be able to figure out.