Each person has their own unique scent, but it is quite something else entirely when you’re close to that person, and you’re inhaling them, deeply. It’s almost intoxicating, isn’t it? The smell of your child or your spouse.
Having just spent the week at my parents, they were busy filling their tanks full of lovin’ and kissin’ from my kids, particularly our youngest who most of them hadn’t even met yet. My sister commented how delicious he smelled. I wholeheartedly agreed with her, but it didn’t occur to me exactly how much I adored his smell until she continued on.
You see, my sister is almost half-way through her third pregnancy. And when you’re pregnant, there is almost something that gravitates you towards babies, even more so when you’re blooming. You’re busy thinking and analyzing who’s nose she’ll have, or who she’ll smile at first. Busy with yummy baby-filled thoughts. Getting your hands on one is even more thought-provoking – closing your eyes, imagining that baby is yours, drinking in all that excitement.
So I responded to her that I would have her help me bathe him later, lather him up and lotion him up real good in his my favorite Method baby stuff, and how nice he’d smell then. She stopped me dead in my tracks. “No!! He’ll just smell like that stuff!“
It hadn’t occurred to me in all my years of baby-ing that the lotion was merely masking their beautiful already-evident scents. Here I’d thought that the lotions and bath stuff and everything made them even yummier. Sure, those are good imitations, and get you all warm and fuzzy feeling when you’re pregnant and itchin’ for a baby to hold, but considering she thinks it merely masks the scent, it occurred to me, she was right!
Here I was enveloping myself in my kids’ scent post-bath, post-lotioning, when I should be getting my lovin’ hugs and kissin’ perhaps when the newness of the scent has worn off.
It was like I awoke out of a fog that had blanketed me forever.
Since then I’ve been sneaking up and smelling my kids, really smelling them (I’m sure they must think I’m crazy) but it has been remarkable to say the least. They already think I’m weird, so it’s ok. I’m now weird and chasing them around, sniffing.
With each day that passes, I’m using a little less baby wash and lotion. Enough to get them clean, of course, but using less of it will aid me in smelling their deliciousness, making it that much easier.
Have you smelled love on your children today?