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Years ago, before I knew him as an adult, my husband attended an unfortunate office party in a sufficiently rural setting that people brought their children and everyone got to romp around for the afternoon. One fellow, who was apparently annoying under the best of circumstances, had recently become a father and was proudly holding his baby proclaiming:
"My baby smells incredible. Just smell this kid!"
And without pausing for encouragement would shove the child into the barely prepared faces of his co-workers and their spouses.
This is unpleasant. There are enough smells that one has no choice but to sample (the hideously stinky subway station at 51st street and Lexington or the weirdly awful cloud outside the McDonald's on Canal street) and no one should have to endure things being stuck under one's nose.
But there is something ineffable about baby smell, and I don't mean to open myself up to all sorts of ha-ha jokes about excrement and sour milk. Ever since Felix was born, neighbors and strangers will smile at him and say: "Don't babies smell amazing?" One woman who lives upstairs from me had tears in her eyes when she said: "There's nothing like it and when it's gone, it never comes back," Her daughter is in middle school.
It must be true, though I haven't been overly conscious of being attached to this special scent. I'm sure I'll miss it when it's gone, just as I'm sure there is some primal biological reason for it. There is so much nostalgia built in to being a new parent. For every adorable outfit, there is something freshly outgrown. For every new stage in development, there is something lost.
Smell is something incredibly powerful. It enables taste, triggers memory, feeds emotions. If you're selling your house you're supposed to toast coffee beans or do something with vanilla extract to encourage your pad's appeal. Men are supposedly turned on by the aromas of baked goods (is it cinnamon? Where did I read this?) because they supposedly remind them of their mothers. Never mind the Oedipal issues this factoid raises, or what it means for men whose mothers are terrible cooks or who never laid a hand on a potholder.
I know that when I was pregnant I became more aware of how the world smelled (not always an advantage) and since having Felix, I've suddenly become entranced by perfume. Apparently Jennifer Lopez was thinking about sentimental parents when she was planning her latest perfume "Live," saying she is intrigued by the smell of new babies' heads and apparently worked it in as an element. I have not gotten a whiff of this product. I can't say whether it made it in there.
It is a lucky thing for me that Felix likes to be held close. I think my lack of awareness of his baby smell may come from my being all over him so often. But now that it is in my mind as something that will eventually go away, I suppose I should drink it in and hold it in my mind as best I can. If only it were something easy to recall, to use as a sort of talisman when I'm faced with future unease.
posted by Elise at 12:22 PM
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