It is a truth universally acknowledged that babies smell heavenly. They just have that new human smell. At 6 and 3, my children still smell divine … right out of the bathtub, a mixture of pinkly-scrubbed flesh and Baby Magic.
Last night, they wanted me to lay down between them in their bed. It’s an uncomfortable routine for me, laying there on my stomach, patting one while rubbing the other’s eyebrow (it puts her to sleep, what can I say?). Eventually, they tire; feet shuffling and pillow plumping cease, and they yawn once more before their mouth falls slack.
Perfumes and incense brings joy to the heart – Proverbs 27:9
For many minutes, I’m scared to leave. Moving tends to wake the little beasts, and besides, I can hover close to them, soaking up that clean aroma, mixed with the minty remnant of toothpaste on their breath and a hint of lavender laundry detergent on their fresh-from-the-dryer nightgowns. They look like angels.
Soft curls framing Mia’s face, a tendril ending just shy of her mouth, slightly ajar, and revealing her missing top teeth. Wendy’s straight hair falls like a curtain around her heart-shaped cheeks and chin. After gazing awhile at their innocent faces, sliding myself toward the foot of the bed, I stop. I shouldn’t have stopped, but I heard something rumbling that sounded like a battery-powered toy under the covers.
It wasn’t a toy. It was Wendy’s stomach. And then, with my face inches from her midsection, she emits the most powerful fart I’ve ever witnessed. And within milliseconds, the olfactory sensation of what I believe tear gas to be, fills my nostrils and leaves me gasping for air. My face turns a sickly green and my eyes begin to water.
Moment over. Mood irrevocably crushed. How quickly that sweet smell of post-bath-beauty is squelched beneath the oppressive musky odor of methane! How deceptive are the sweet looks that hide the horrendous bowels!
Tell me about your passing-gas horror story. What type of cologne/perfume do you wear?
Messiah Mom 
Pingback: Scent of Heaven (via Messiah Mom) | concretecrissy
I wish I could stop laughing, but I can’t.
Bravo.
it does seem kind of funny…. now
Wow, that is awful! And I needed the laugh this morning with some things that I will have to be witness to today at work.
My son does this to me quite frequently unfortunately! I finally got him out of farting in my bed when he comes to sit or cuddle, but getting him not to do it in my room at all is proving difficult. 🙂
praying for your work situation, today.
my oldest daughter thinks farts are funny, and will stink bomb me – I was just NOT expecting it at that juncture.
ROFL! That was great – thanks for the laugh!
glad my pain could be your gain 😉
I love your kids. they are awesome.
My 4 yr old son one time sat on my face and farted while I was napping on the sofa. If I didn’t love him so much, I would have give him a nice, clean beating.
oh… that would be a temptation for me too, but I love my little squirts
I’m assuming “little squirts” was intended. 🙂
sometimes I’m smarter than people give me credit for, and I like to think I live and write, intentionally 😉
Bwahahahaha!
I can’t think of any really funny fart stories with my own kids, but growing up, my family had an RV and we went camping a good bit. One time we were on vacation and as we were going to bed that night my dad let one rip that filled the whole RV with the most horrible smell ever. He was waaaaay up in the front with my mom and I was waaaaay in the back with one of my sisters and I yelled, “We’re all going to die from ASSphixiation!” We probably laughed about that for the next half hour while we were trying to go to sleep.
Good times.
that’s a pungent story, Alise. We need to monitor the diets of those we love to save the world from a gas attack like this in the future.
Wow I so didn’t expect that! It was all sweet and innocent and then you just suddenly threw in a fart! Much like life I suppose…
that’s exactly like life, when you least expect it…
HAHAHAHA! That is hilarious! How quickly the most wonderful beautiful things can turn to horrible things…lol
it’s all too terribly true, I’m afraid… and now I’m afraid of tucker-inner time, too.
lol. I will pray for you tonight!
merci
You’re right. This is most definitely one of the most motivational posts you’ve ever written. 🙂
I have an awesome fart story. Picture it….first grade gym class. A photographer came to our gym class to take pics for the yearbook. My classmates and I were all learning to use hula-hoops. We would start off sitting on the gym floor and then the teacher would whistle and we would hop up, grab our hula-hoops, and see who could go the longest. In the quiet moments between rounds while we wait to hear the whistle blow…someone let out a fart so loud that it echoed throughout the whole gym and down the hallway. That person was me. Seconds after ripping the fart heard ’round the world, the photographer snapped a picture of me trying to hula-hoop the embarrassment away with this shy look on my face. It’s in the yearbook. To this day, when I see a hula-hoop my butt clinches a little tighter.
🙂
your story is going to give me nightmares, and I’ll never see The Hudsucker Proxy the same again. I also need to find a video to post, here. (goes searching)
Well, being the dad of two growing boys – 8 and 5, we don’t normally have this problem of which you speak. But, as I reach to the far corners of my mind – I remember this morning as I was having breakfast with Aidan, he fired off two missiles as we were having the best talk about how testing was going in school. Right there. In the middle of a sweet father-son moment. The joys of life.
Oh – I wear Polo Blue and Sandlewood. Lynnette tells me that neither one smells like gas. 🙂
you can’t script family time.
I wonder how a fart-scented cologne would go over? I can already picture the “release” event
I’m not down with pootie smelling cologne or perfume. Might destroy something if it was contained – then released. 🙂
sell it to the military
Burberry Touch or Weekend. I thought girls didn’t fart…
it’s a little known fact, and you’d be hard pressed to find one over the age of 8 to own it
I spent the weekend trapped in a school with teenage boys. By the time we left, there was a green mist hanging in the air.
you should see your doctor about what lasting damage that might cause
One time I farted at my desk. It’s usually not a big deal because I have an office. This time was especially rancid and just as it happens someone walks in to talk to me. They tried to hide the fact that they couldn’t breathe but they knew it could have only come from one person. Yup, we both had to sit there and bask in my presence while we spoke.
Oh and I wear Carolina Herrera’s 212. I love it.
“bask in my presence” wins for the best euphemism for “gagging on the stench of a fart” that I’ve read today
My scent of choice: jean paul gaultier
And, I have perfected the One Cheek Bench Sneak.
nice. I’m sure your mom is so proud
It’s true, he has! I witnessed it at starbucks, of course he’ll just blame it on trying to avoid the sun glare…
Your daughter has a unique gift. And now you owe her something big when the first boyfriend that finds your blog reads back this many years to see your post.
I’ve got plenty of ammunition with which to embarrass that one!
There’s a little pack of elementary school kids who roam around on their little razor scooters & always seem to follow me around my neighborhood whenever I go for a run. They ask me questions or sometimes make comments like “Why’s he going so slow?” I like eating grapes, but if I eat too many before I go jogging it turns into a funny situation. This funny thing occurred the last time they were riding along all around me. There was silence for a couple of seconds then I said something about needing a muffler for my body’s exhaust system. They thought this was hilarious. Then they kept bugging me to do it again -all the way home. It was a very long jog. Now, whenever they find me they try to get me to do it again. I think God uses them to keep me humble. It’s very effective.
This awesome story will remain with me until I die, and I will never ever ever share it 😉
My dad, brother and I all standing behind my grandfather in a buffet line. My grandfather proceeds with what we would call the “walking farts” because he would walk many steps and continue to fart while walking.
Being me, my brother and my father, we all started laughing so hard we were crying.
Good times.
Cologne? I wear this stuff in a clear bottle that my wife got me. I forget what it’s called.
I pray this never happens to me. I was in a dressing room with my grandma one time, and she started laughing so hard at what we were trying on, that she let out a great laugh-fart and then we were all laughing, but thankfully, not all farting.
All I can say is that I’m dealing with feelings of guilt because it sounds like you give your children a bath every night, and we do so about once every 25 days or so.
And I don’t wear cologne. Ever. Ever.
Ever.
that just made me giggle. out loud. for real.
Ha ha. That caught me off guard.
When my oldest daughter was a baby, I thought she smelled exactly like honey. My husband said she smelled the way I smell, so apparently I smell like honey?
Now that she is getting older, I’m finding she gets stinky quite quickly and I have to send her to the showers. And she’s nowhere near adolescence yet! Ah!
Honey is a good smell – they should make honey-scented deoderant, if they don’t already.
One of our goats died. We had to bury it at about 9 o’clock at night. All of our kids gathered round the grave after I placed Bootsie’s lifeless body in the hole. I said a few words about her and then allowed each of the kids to do the same. It was a solemn moment as I closed the service in prayer…until one of my boys passed gas. Moment over.
but think of the comic relief if you started doing that at actual funerals you conduct… Grandma has passed and the pastor passed too
Oh my gosh, I’m new to your blog, so I had no idea where this was going! I was all caught up in the angelic sleeping beauties — certainly did not expect a fart was headed my way! 🙂
I have two boys…the youngest of whom my husband has nicknamed “the gas giant.” Enough said?
That said, never once in the 17 years I’ve known my husband have I ever heard him cut the cheese. I kid you not. He sets an impossible standard around here.
that’s an amazing gift your husband has! do you think he just doesn’t fart or he’s that good at hiding it? my mind is now blown. I thought males had a prideful need to proclaim their gas. huh
I just read your guest post at Bryans blog…so i decided to check you out….not like how you loook…uh…umm…moving on….I read this post and I literly LOL’d at work and everyone was like…what tha &^%#…..i sank down into my chair and wrote this comment….
I like you blog…i have to kidos myself… a 5 year old genius and my 3 year old power ranger…..love it!!!
my kids sound like your kids, except my oldest is 6. they scare me very much, and I’m glad I could make you laugh, even if people are looking at you funny at work.
I have such sad news for all you 30-somethings. EVERYONE gets to the fart-while-you-walk-laugh-sneeze stage in life. Sorry, it’s just the truth. How I wish it weren’t so. I had so many laughs at my grandmother’s and my aunts’ expense. And now? Oh, woe is me. It ain’t pretty. And for Michelle at “Graceful” – 17 years, eh? I think my husband lasted longer than that – talk about pressure (in every sense you can imagine)! But even he, paragon of tight cheeks that he is, has fallen prey to the vagaries of aging. Sigh. LOVED this post – came here through Alise Writes’ weekend picks and have signed on for the duration. I love an unexpected laugh in the midst of musing. Thanks!
I’m so glad that you stepped over from Alise’s blog and plan on staying.
I don’t like the prophetic nature of your post, and will be praying, like Abraham, to stave off the inevitable.
Its funny how farting will never stop being funny. The whoopie cushion will outlast the iPhone.
no kidding – farts are funny. not gonna lie
Well I have 3 boys. That’s a fart-fest right there. Sometimes my little one (almost 3) is the most brutal. 🙂
I don’t like perfumes or any other artificial fragrance. Someone told me once that I’m like a cat since I just can’t stand perfumes. You want to cover the smell of farts? Light up some incense, but don’t burn your home doing so (almost happened to me once).
I will certainly keep that in mind – burning down the house is a bad idea, though, if I could smart bomb just the playroom, I wouldn’t have to constantly remind the kids to clean it.