that new baby smell

Asa just turned a year over the weekend and I can hardly believe it! Time behaves differently when measured by the yardstick of a baby's life. The first few days and weeks are blurred into one fantastically long day full of excitement, euphoria and adrenaline.  Then, at least for me, the next few months are a second long day of exhaustion, excitement and adjustment. Then around the three month mark things settle down and become a third, extremely long but happy day. So basically, Asa is three days old to me at this point.

Last night we were feeding him dinner when he grabbed for his spoon and Jeff obligingly handed it over to him for the first time ever. So there we were, at the dinner table with Asa in his high chair, apricots on the tray and a bowl of greek yogurt and a spoon in his possession. It was adorable, hilarious and very messy as the photos will prove when I upload them.  He was such a mess afterward that it was a 'straight to the tub' night.

We made it a bubble bath with Johnson & Johnson's bedtime blend that has all those relaxing scents to "ensure a good nights sleep". Whatever, it was a baby shower gift and if it eases him into bedtime with its lavender and ylang ylang than that's fantastic. After a very thorough scrubbing we dried him off and I lotioned him up with the J&J bedtime lotion (also a gift, thank you baby shower guest). He sat on my lap with his little naked tush on my legs while I rubbed the lotion into his back and shoulders giving him a little baby massage and I inhaled the smell of my clean baby's head and felt a surge of affection and attachment that reminded me of the hours after he was born.

There really is nothing like a new baby smell. In a word it is intoxicating. We didn't bathe Asa for days after he was born, we just let him be and enjoyed the scent of new baby, inhaling like it was a drug. I suppose it must be a type of drug, some hormonal thing that Mother Nature brewed up to ensure we cherish these little beings that otherwise would drive us crazy. Well, Johnson & Johnson aren't as good as Mother Nature but let me tell you, in the decades they've been around they've achieved something special. I suppose it must be the collected culturally learned norm for me to think a baby who smells like Johnson & Johnson smells "like a baby".  They may not feel the same way about the scent in say Uruguay or Nepal, who knows. But I can say, last night when I smelled Asa I had flashbacks to his first days and hours and then further back to when my sister was a newborn and then I started thinking I probably smelled like that to my mom 32 years ago and who knows, maybe she smelled like that to her mom too.

There's something magical about scents. They can transport us, relax us, excite us ... and last night J&J's bedtime blend worked as a time machine for me. It was pretty awesome.