Mothering 101: Follow Your Nose

One day, I seemed to be on top of things. (ha!) The house was semi-clean, Emmy was playing quietly in her room, and I was peacefully feeding Sophie. I even had cookies baking in the oven. As I was enjoying the moment, I started to notice the smell of laundry detergent in the air. "Hmm. . . I thought, someone must be doing their laundry" (we live right next to the laundry room). I continued rocking with Sophie, when I realized that Emmy had been playing quietly for a long time . . . things were eerily quiet.

As I walked into her bedroom, her whole body jerked--she knew she was caught. She was sitting amidst clouds of laundry detergent, "cleaning" it with a square of toilet paper. It was quite a mess and cleaning it was made more arduous by Emmy's noble attempts to help out. When we were finally finished, I noticed another smell: the cookies! I rushed to take them out of the oven, but I was too late. They were burnt to a crisp.

What an afternoon. I sat down to take a breather, when I was confronted by yet another smell: sweet little Sophie needed a major diaper change. Yuck. Two kids in diapers makes the chore of diaper changing pretty routine, but still, not pleasant.

Too much laundry soap, burnt chocolate chip cookies, and poopy diapers made up the greater part of my afternoon, but you know, I'll take 'em - because everything is made worth it when I get to breathe in the soft, clean scent of Emmy's shiny hair, and inhale Sophie's sweet, milky breath.