Smells Like Baby

I would like to share something with you.

Just a small thing, but it's a fairly profound realization I just came to this morning.

I picked up Splat and put her in her crib for nap. The walk between her exersaucer and her crib was very slow and drawn out as I walked in an almost dance-like sway, and cuddled my tiny daughter in my arms. With my nose buried in the top of her head, and my hand holding hers, I inhaled her sweet sweet smell. Then it hit me.

Whenever I hold my babies I smell them, I inhale their scents and it gives me a silent moment of euphoria.

Why do people like to smell babies? What does someone mean when they say 'Mmm, smells like baby'? Why would the scent of throw-up and poop be so enticing to people?

Here is my answer.

I have a two year old who's hair smells like sweet strawberries, and yet my baby shampoo for Splat is near scentless. But the sweet smell that I'm inhaling, that I am enjoying, that I am trying to burn into my memory is of her.

When I triple the amount of time it takes to walk to her crib because I am smelling her, I am also holding her and feeling her breath and her heart beating against me. I am trying to memorize the size of her fingers and the power of her grip, the weight of her little dependant body in my arms, and the awe and comfort that she finds in my eyes.

Scent is one of the most powerful memory triggers, and I like to think that when Splat is two, ten, twenty-five years old, that I will one day hold another baby that will smell like throw-up and poop, and that baby may grip my finger, or be just as heavy, or look at me with the same innocent wonder, and I will be magically brought back to the time when I was holding my precious little girls. A time when I was the world to them.


This is what I mean when I say: "Mmm, smells like baby."