The Aroma of Baby Love

Yesterday, when I picked up my boy, splayed out on the toy-strewn wooden floor and rubbed my nose into the soft-as-satin skin of his neck, it occurred to me that this beloved routine of smelling and sniffing will eventually give way to other forms of communication. It's already happening--words strung together in bits and bobs, piecemeal remnants of the riveting conversation trying to make it's way out of his head. It's all very entertaining and hilarious and pride-swelling (i well up when he says My Dada, with the same fierce ownership most toddlers apply to Elmo dolls). But I can't help wonder how these shiny, new language skills might somehow be linked to the demise of my olfactory relationship with my son. For me, the psychology of smell is powerful. It's one of my strongest senses--both in emotional triggers and acuteness (while pregnant, I once walked in the house and announced, I smell cat. ryan thought i was nuts but later that night, we discovered a kitty on our back porch.) So far with Cass, it's been more of the same.

It's how I know when he needs a new diaper or when it's time to take a bath. The summer scent of sticky-sweet baby sweat commingles with the pungency of dirt and cheerio dust in the folds of his skin. In the fall, the smell of crisp air and crunched, dry leaves stick to his clothes. I know intimately the smell of playing inside all day, of wooden puzzle pieces and construction paper and boredom. I'm reminded what he eats, smelling it on his toddler breath and matted in his fine hair. A banana, peanut butter toast, a fistful of pineapple chunks, an overripe avocado. I detect traces of finger paint and old soy milk stained on his shirt.

I still love the smell of his feet that no longer smell of freshly laundered baby socks. They stink like boy. Like matchbox cars and stuffed footballs. They stink like tennis shoes, like running and jumping. Like action that knows only the reprieve of a two-hour nap. And those tiny armpits! I lift up his arm and make a game out of sniffing hard-to-reach places. He giggles triumphantly, as we identify body parts, while I inhale in earnest, knowing that I will not always have the luxury of knowing him by smell. One day, he will probably ask me to stop. Of course, I'm not deranged enough to identify words as the enemy, calling for an immediate cease and desist. I have no intentions of sniffing behind the knee of a 14-year-old, I promise you. I do wonder, however, if these smells can ever be reproduced. Like smelling the cologne of a high school crush, head filling up with the sounds of a high school football game, knees turning instantly to jelly. It's a brilliant marketing idea. Little vials of carefully crafted peanut-butter-dirt-dandelion-banana-soy-milk-aquafor-burtsbeestoothpaste-crayon concoctions. It could be sold to washed-up old moms who miss their babies. There would be a wave of lactating 40- and 50-year-olds out there. Johnson & Johnson, are you listening?