One of the things that no parent is fully prepared for when embarking upon parenthood and family life is…the smell. I know, we are all enamored of the glorious, clean, fresh baby smell—but new babies don’t always smell that great. And, as the years progress, chances are, the child smells not-so-great, more often than he or she smells good. But sometime around the late elementary or early teen years, life can get pretty darn stinky…
My kids tease me because I have a rather keen sense of smell and I am forever walking through the house saying “What’s that smell?!” It’s not usually for anything that smells good either. There are just so many things that can get rank and rancid in a house with three kids—fish tanks that need to be cleaned, socks that have been worn and re-worn for a week without my intervention, and old pair of soccer cleats, a forgotten dish left under the coffee table—How? I ask you, how? But then again, anyone with children just stops asking how or why and learns how to sniff out the offending object as quickly as possible.
I’ve seen those television commercials where the mother of the teen sprays down the room with air freshener, but that’s not really my scene. Those strong perfume-y scents are just as aggravating to me as the smell of stinky shoes. I want fresh and clean, not covered over with fake perfume. But, I don’t really want the smelly teenage scent that often permeates my house now either. And, I confess that I do have a nightmare that long after my last child moves out I will be cleaning out a closet and find some long-offending, odiferous item that will be completely unrecognizable, but still stinky. I really will be asking “What on earth is this awful smell?!”
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