What's that Smell?

Watching a child grow from tiny, squalling newborn into a robust toddler involves all the senses. The delicate feel of their skin, the amazing overnight changes visible in their features as they grow, the random things that end up in your mouth as a parent (saliva, pacifiers that have been dropped who knows where, occasionally some things much nastier) and of course the darling little coos to the ear splitting shrieks. But the parade of smells...there is just something about the odors of childhood that amazes me.

I remember when he was a newborn and I would sit and hold him with my nose pressed to his scalp, inhaling what has to be the most delicious non-smell food in the world. Two weeks later colic and a horrible case of reflux set in leaving him smelling like baby spit up most of the time, that sort of 'off' milk smell that doesn't discourage proximity but can usually be fixed by changing their clothes. The diapers of this period also weren't terribly off-putting, with the sickly sweet smell of breast milk poop.

Fast forward 8 months and he is a mobile stink machine on wheels. As a result of consuming copious amounts of table food and an inadequate digestive system, washing diapers had become a distasteful act, not to be done until absolutely imperative. On the plus side, the reflux had all but gone away and we went a couple months without him throwing up at all.

By the time he had been on cows milk a month I was back to doing diaper laundry every other day. Any longer than that in the diaper pail and an accidental breath through my nose left me losing me lunch in the trash can. These days find me wandering into a room olfactory stations blaring...what is that smell? I sniff high and low to find the culprit whether it be the smell of raw fear emanating from my cats, a week old bottle stuffed in a toy bin or the darling emissions coming from a 25 pound midget. Occasionally, I find that the lingering odor is smeared poop on my own clothes from (hopefully) the last diaper change. I can't begin to count the number of times I've smelled something in public and without breaking in conversation lifted Gus to nose level to smell his diaper. If it wasn't him, I've embarrassed whoever I was talking to that tried to stink and not claim it.

Today I walked into his room after nap time and smelled the unmistakable stench of vomit. I pulled him out of the crib and sniffed him down. Nope-clean. I smelled each stuffed animal and blanket as it came out of the crib. No dice. I found a sock at one corner of the crib that reeked and upon further inspection, Gus had removed it, thrown up in it and tucked in in the corner of the crib and taken a nap. None of the crib bedding smelled except where it had contacted the sock and his clothes were fine. Laying the sock on the ground while I stripped the bed I was distracted by a tug on my leg. Staring up at me was a sweet child. He grinned at me, said "Please?" and handed me the offending sock. Ugh...

And then of course there is the vague odor of urine that every toddler seems to have clinging to them. No amount of baby wiping or sponge bathing seems to get rid of that sour diaper smell the way their bottoms sitting in a bath tub for 30 minutes can do. Unfortunately Gus has eczema. He cannot be bathed everyday without breaking out into a ferocious rash that resembles what I imagine morphing into a lizard would look like. Most of the time he gets a bath every 3 or 4 days. So every 3 or 4 days, I hold him close and breath in his sweet smell.

I truly believe God eases us into this. If I had been handed as fully mobile, loud but not terribly communicative, drooling, sticky, stinky toddler that I have now, I'm pretty sure I would have feigned insanity rather than voluntarily taken it home with me. Lucky for both of us, they gave me a sweet smelling, mild tempered, tiny, angelic newborn. I was given an opportunity to love and grow attached to this wrinkled creature so now, when it vomits in a sock and hands it to me, I just sigh, throw the sock in the laundry and sent the midget on its way with a kiss on the head and a pat on the bottom. And then go wash my hands in bleach.