The Creepiest Thing I've Ever Said to My Children

The other day, while I strapped my extremely heavy toddler into a carrier on my chest, I had a weird Mom moment. As I shifted his weight and thought about the progression of carrying Benjamin from a newborn to now, I habitually took in a big whiff of his skin pressed against mine. I love the smell of his skin. That’s where this rabbit trail began...

I wondered at how many hours of the last 15 months I’ve held that skin, memorizing its feeling and scent. And how, somehow, after all those hours, when that skin is finally asleep and all is quiet - I miss that skin. Those reminiscent thoughts took me to recounting the hours of holding tiny little Lifa, even sharing a bed with him for a long time. I used to breathe him in the same way I breathe in Benjamin. 

I picked Lifa up from school that day and listened to him happily chatter about this day. When I told him about mine, I screamed, “I don’t remember what your skin smells like!” It felt like all of a sudden, Lifa went from a tiny little thing who needed me for everything to a grown man who only needs me to buy his deodorant. I told him my weird progression of thoughts through the day while he smirked and shook his head at his crazy, crazy mother. 

But I see him steal kisses from Benjamin’s hands and cheeks in the rearview mirror. He knows how delicious that baby’s skin smells. And through my dramatic mother-bursts, he now knows his skin was just as important to me. I’ve never tried to be the cool mom. Apparently, I’ve just ventured into being really creepy. (I may or may not have told Lifa I might come in his room that night after he went to sleep to smell his skin. He just said goodnight and that I was weird.)

I don’t want to let one nook or cranny of the things I love about my kids to go unannounced. I want to tell them story after story after story of how ridiculously loved they are - even for the smell of their skin. And I want to be weird about it so they remember it. And I want to cherish every skin scent I can sneak.** Think about it, God had to give us skin smells for a reason. 

**Note: We don’t have to get crazy here. No one wants to actually sniff the skin of an adolescences young man. While most of this blog is literal, this one sentence is purely figurative.