My life is very olfactory centric. I would say a good 60 percent of my day is spent wondering about smells. I am strongly influenced by whether I find a smell pleasing or not.

Just putting that out there.

The Bad

If you ever wondered what parenthood would be like, I can summarize it in 6 words. “What the hell is that smell?”

We are 5 people in an apartment with two toilets. To be honest, at any given point in time, at least one bathroom is..ahem..in need of fresh air. Even if not that, I am convinced that someone is peeing in a corner and I can’t find it. No matter what I do, it smells like urine. Also I can’t, for the life of me, figure this out but when my boys shower it smells like wet dog. Just the boys, the rest of us leave the bathroom smelling like soap.

My kids are really beyond that innocent age when they really don’t build up much stink. Nowadays, holy hell. There is only one person in the house not using deodorant. The laundry room smells like old sweat if I let clothes pile up. My couch smells like feet. And the boys room? How much tooting can two little guys do in their sleep? I check on them every night before I crash. Opening up that door is like opening the gates of hell. How do they sleep through it? It haunts me.

The Good

The kids’ lovies all have this sleepy head smell to them. I can’t explain it but even though they may not be the freshest, I find that the smell takes me back to when they were little babes and smelled just like the stuffed animals that never left their sides.

The same goes for this spot on the back of their necks and the top of their heads. I swear, I could identify my kids blindfolded, just by that smell.  I take deep whiffs when we hug or cuddle. They always laugh at me but I catch them sneaking a sniff of me too, sighing as they do. Maybe the apples don’t fall far from the tree.

Today, for giggles after I cleaned, I put some water on the stove with a cinnamon stick, orange slices, and cloves. The whole place smelled delicious and clean all afternoon. But alas, I just checked on the sleeping Bubbas and the wall of farts was as tall and deep as ever. There is no evidence of my earlier actions at all.  That is okay. I still pushed through it to grab one last sniff of a sleepy head before calling it a day.