The stay-at-home dad: Certain smells and digestive preferences
My 5-year-old daughter notices unusual smells before anyone else in the house, even if she doesn’t always have the words to describe them.
I’ve written about her “super sniffer” in this space before… specifically about her gum wrapper collection. She doesn’t chew gum herself, but she requests Mom and Dad’s wrappers so she can sit and smell them over and over again. It’s weird.
She’ll come in handy if there’s ever a gas leak, so long as we’re able to decipher how she describes what she smells.
For Christmas our kids received a couple of new Playstation remotes from Santa Claus. On first use, my daughter took a good long sniff. I assumed she might smell Lysol or something from the packaging (thanks for being COVID- , Mr. Kringle!), but she had another interpretation.
Her: “This remote control smells like Grandpa.”
I asked her for more details.
Her: “I don’t know. It just smells exactly like Grandpa.”
Me: “Which grandpa”
Her: “The stinky grandpa.”
The remote came from a jolly old guy with white hair, so maybe her answer makes perfect sense.
We have a Vitamin C throat spray we give to the kids. You’d guess it might taste and smell like oranges. Not according to our daughter.
Her: “It smells like an office?”
Me: “What do you mean an office?”
Her: “Like a chair!”
Whenever we chop onions in the house, she says it smells like Daddy after mowing the lawn. I think she means it smells like perfectly normal male body odor after hard labor, but it still hurts my feelings.
Ask her to smell your armpit and she’ll go into greater detail:
Her: “Your armpit smells like crayons.”
And if I put some deodorant on and ask her again:
Her: “Your armpit smells like pencils.”
Me: “What do pencils smell like?”
Her: “I don’t know. You stink.”
This bizarre line of questioning came up again recently when I was chopping up some onions to add to a frozen pizza. Apparently when we talk about odors, it opens the door to other conversations.
Still bruising from the latest attack on my aroma, my 9-year-old daughter approached me with a much classier subject:
Her: “I’m really glad we’re having pizza today and leftover pizza tomorrow.”
Me: “Me too, I love pizza on the weekend.”
Her: “I like it because it gives me Monday to have Pizza Poops, so then I have normal poops on Tuesday.”
Me: “Why do you want to have normal poops on Tuesday but not Monday?”
Her: “Tuesday is usually a really good day for me, and I don’t want it ruined by Pizza Poops.”
Then my 5-year-old daughter adds: “I know what ‘Pizza Poops’ smell like!”
I did not ask her to elaborate.
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Tyler Wilson is a freelance writer and stay-at-home dad to four kids, ages 3-9. He is tired. He can be reached at twilson@cdapress.com.