My Babies Smell So Sweet

When I first met my babies, I couldn't help but notice the warm sweet smell coming from them.  Their breath was sweet. Their bodies had a warm sweetness emanating from their skin. I fell in love with them and their smell.  I still love the way my babies smell.  Aidan is now three and half and Madeleine is two.  When they wake up in the morning or after a nap, they still have that warm sweet smell baby smell; I swear it is better than freshly baked cookies.  I love putting my nose close to their necks and just inhaling them.  I have a feeling this baby smell will not last forever.  Let me correct myself and say, I know this baby smell will not last forever.  So until that happens, I plan on inhaling their sweet baby smell as long as I can.  In the end, I know they will wind up smelling like the rest of us.  Let's just say the rest of us don't smell warm and sweet.

I was talking to my dear friend Bruce the other day about how much I love the way my kids smell, and I was met with a harsh reality.  Not only will the kids lose their baby smell, but I might forget what this smell I adore smells like.   Bruce has two boys that are slightly older than my kids; they are eight and six.  Bruce says his boys smell like boys.  In the morning, they don't have a warm sweet smell; they smell like boys.  He says airing the boy's rooms out in the morning is more along the lines of what he does, not sticking his nose in the warmest part of their necks.  The saddest part about talking to Bruce about the smell of our children is the fact that he says he cannot remember his boys' warm sweet smell.  When he said this to me, I almost panicked.

How could I forget something I loved so much?  How can I bottle that smell?  How can I force myself to remember?  Then it hit me.  I'll write about it.  Words live on forever.  I know I won't be able to relive the smell once my kids have lost it.  Kinda like we cannot relive the shots at the doctor's office.  Or we cannot relive the many times we scrapped our knees as a kid.  Or we cannot relive those wonderful contractions that brought our children into the world.  That is one of God's little gifts - not to be able to relive physical pain. But the flip side of that gift is we cannot relive a sweet smell from the past that is long gone.  But we can RECALL it.  And that is my hope in writing this entry today.  I want to force myself to put this sense in my memory for me to recall when I am old.  That is the power of the written word - it lives forever.

My hope is that I take the time to force these kinds of memories in -- in so they can never be lost. The memories may not be relived, but they can be recalled in my heart. My hope for you is that you take the time to do the same thing with your special memories.