The Scents of Motherhood

There are some things that you can never forget, and one of those things are certain smells.  Have you ever caught a whiff of something and been taken back in time to something in your past?  There is a certain perfume that I wore when I was dating my husband and when I smell it, the floodgate of memories pours over me.  There are also smells that I wish I could forget…

I’ve noticed lots of different scents this past year.  My son was born in December of last year, so we are about to celebrate his first birthday.  There have been lots of smells associated with becoming a mom.  First, there is the scent of Dreft detergent.  That’s a pleasant smell.  Then there’s the smell of baby lotions and shampoos and powders and bubble bath and all of the squeaky clean smells.  I just love to sniff my son’s freshly washed hair.  It makes me want to gobble him up, or at least kiss him fifteen thousand times.

Another smell I’ve become familiar with is the wood scent of his clothes coming out of his pine chest of drawers.  It’s a pungent odor, but not unpleasant.  This was something new at first, but now it is completely recognizable to me.  Anytime I smell that particular scent in the future I’ll be taken back to his first year.

The smells of motherhood can be overpowering at times.  I doubt I’ll forget the smell of spitup anytime soon.  When I walk into his room every morning, the overwhelming smell is urine.  This morning, I picked up my son and was smacked in the face with the scent of a freshly dirtied diaper.  This makes most people groan, but I gladly change his diaper no matter how much it makes me want to gag.  One reason for this is that I just remind myself that there are lots of women in the world who only wish they had a baby whose diaper they’d be privileged to change.  (YES, it is a privilege to change a baby’s diaper!  Jesus says in Matt. 18:5 that whatever we do for the “lease of these” we do for Him--- He counts service to small children as service unto Himself.) 

I am so eternally grateful for the wonderful gift of my son and all of the scents and smells that come with him.  I know in the coming years he’ll emit lots of new smells (some good, but mostly probably not so pleasant!), and I will rejoice in each one because it will mean that he is a part of my life.