b.o. & boo-boos

I stink.

Seriously, ever since I was pregnant I have atrocious b.o. and I don't know why. It's not all the time (thank God) but I have found that the only weapon strong enough for my army of fumes is John's Right Guard gel stick. We buy it in bulk from Costco.

Anyway, I have been battling the odor demons more voraciously ever since I transferred the noxious offensiveness onto the sweetest-smelling object on the planet: Luciya's head.

Luciya wakes up between 7 and 7:30 every morning. We usually let her babble to herself for a while before I retrieve her and bring her into bed with us, where she and I snuggle and nurse for a while. Sometimes we even fall asleep together like that, her nestled under the crook of my arm, against my belly.

One morning a few months ago we woke up and smiled at each other and I brought her up to me to give her kisses. I inhaled her, recoiled, inhaled again. Her 20-minute pit nuzzle had left her with a head stench worthy of junior high locker room rivalry. Thankfully, we were alone. I applied sweet apricot baby oil to her dome. Seemed to help. Maybe no one would notice.

Luciya's big sister Eryn was in town at the time and that afternoon we went boating. Eryn was playing with Luciya and suddenly looked up at her dad. "Luciya doesn't smell like a baby anymore," she said. "She smells like your friend from Germany."



The mommy-sadism doesn't end there. A few weeks ago I was gently trimming Luciya's grow-an-inch-a-minute fingernails when I somehow miscalculated my aim and ended up SNIPPING OFF THE TOP OF HER FINGER. It bled. It bled all over the sheets in her play yard. It bled so much I had to put two adult band-aids over her teeny tiny digit and the blood SOAKED THROUGH THEM.

Luciya's reaction to the whole thing?



Guess I'm not such a bad mom after all.