Saturday, August 07, 2004

Never wanting to exhale.

I had an epiphany tonight. I'm bathing Izzy and I've got a little stream of consciousness going through my mind and I think about how good Izzy smells after a bath. You know what I'm talking about. Sweet and pure and so very clean. Then I remember about going to visit a high school girl who had just had a little tiny baby, when Izzy was about five months old. I'm holding him, and he was only about 5 or 6 pounds - very, very small, but healthy - and I said, "Oooh, he smells so good!" Baby lotions and powders just have that good smell. The girl looks up at me and she says, "My mom always smell his head too and breathes in real deep. Says she can't get enough of his smell. Why do women always do that?" I told her I didn't know. They did that to Izzy too, and I guess it was just because baby products smell so good. It's a big manufacturing ploy, to make sure that mommies keep taking care of their babies.

So fast forward back to tonight. I'm thinking about that visit and about how I the only time I really get to enjoy his sweet-smelling nape is when he's getting his bedtime bottle. That's the only time he ever sits still anymore. Then it hit me: these older women who smell babies heads aren't being weird. They are being transported back to the happiest days of their lives, when their own babies were bathed in gentle baby wash, had been lovingly covered in lotion, and had their tiny bottoms sprinkled with baby powder. Seriously, there are few things on earth more fulfilling than cuddling a freshly bathed and swaddled newborn.

When I was pregnant, I was reading a Newsweek article about Alzheimer's and I saw a picture that brought tears to my eyes. It was a very old - and very content - woman cradling a teddy bear, rocking it gently. I tore the picture out and I brought it home to share with Chris. "This is the saddest picture I've ever seen," I told him. "She's regressed back to when she had babies, which I'm sure was the happiest time in her life." He told me that his grandmother on his dad's side had done the same thing, only she carried a baby doll around. I was so sad for them, back then. Now, I think that being able to return to such a wonderful place when you mind is being destroyed by this terrible disease, is a blessing of the miraculous sort. And I feel so bad for those people who weren't able to have children, who don't have this sort of memory.

If you'll excuse me now, I have to go wrestle down a little guy in there and get a whiff of some light blond fuzz. If only I could bottle that scent...


3 comments:

Maisyday said...

I had never thought about it that way, but I think you are absolutely right! I, of course, have not had children yet, but being around Izzy, Maddie, and Noah always makes me so happy, I can only imagine what it will be like when I have my own. Some of my best memories in life are due to those three.

Now, I love to smell Izzy's little head also. Is this me hoping for the day when it will be my own baby's head, or I am just a freak? :)

Mama Luvins said...

Crystal, you are, indeed a freak. :-)

Mom, thanks. I think.

caygraymomma said...

What a sweet blog and totally true too. I love the way daboys smell when they are freash and clean from the bathtub.