I know Mr. Magoo already thinks I am a freak…I’m just out right strange when it comes to all of my quirks bundled together. I won’t go into all the details here about my different quirks, because I think it would go on far too long.
However, one thing that is just really strange – is that when I hold my son, I sniff him. Like a long deep breath of smelling a flower…I sniff his head and his neck and behind his ears. Talk about primal instincts. Talk about weird. But it is like when I smell a lilac or a rose – I seriously want to drink it all its intoxicating deliciousness and stay there for hours while my brain swirls with endorphines. I really cannot get enough of it.
His scent fills me with such happiness, I cannot even explain it – I try to take it all in now, while he is at an age where he doesn’t know what I am doing. Meanwhile, my husband looks at me like I am crazy cave-woman.
I’ve noticed too, that our home is starting to smell like a child lives here. You know the smell I am talking about – not the poopie gross diaper smell, but that sweet-strange smell or a child. Yup, our home smells like that now. It’s a good smell, I like it, it’s calming.
Yup, I’m a freak.
You are not a freak, lets establish that right away. Through the scores of history, scent has been the strongest physical tie to emotional bonds for almost all mammalian species, even some reptiles and amphibians. There are animals that return to certain areas to reproduce, based on scent. Kittens and puppies are able to find their mothers even in the earliest days of life by looking for her scent, because their eyes are not yet developed. You are not alone in enjoying the new, special, refreshing sent of your offspring. I was just thinking the other night, at around midnight, as I tucked in my 5 year old son before I went to bed, how wonderful his room still smells, even though he’s already 5, his room still smells like “him”, like his body scent, very refreshing, almost sweet smelling. There were toys all over the floor, and laundry in a pile by the door, but it did not detract from ‘his’ smell, and I still notice it almost every day when I go in his room, and I too, can be caught sniffing my son, his hair and his neck. The one exception, and you will come to understand this sooner than later, is that even though their wonderful sweet ‘your child’ scent outlasts, nothing can mask the smell of a young child that has been playing outside on the hottest, muggiest day of the summer. That too, in a most unpleasant way, is also an unforgettable scent! You are right to enjoy Little Magoo’s “intoxicating deliciousness” while you can. Perhaps Mr. Magoo should stop and smell the babies once in a while too.