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Wednesday, October 22, 2008

The Power of Spit Up


There may be something seriously wrong with me.

I mean, I think what I am about to tell you may fall outside the parameters of "normal" ... but, I leave it to you to be the judge.

It has to do with spit up.

Actually, it has to do with crying over spit up. To be even more specific, crying over the smell of spit up!

Which is what I found myself doing today, when I pulled this shirt out of my dresser only to discover a huge white spit up stain on it.

My first reaction was disgust and dismay: Is that spit up?? How did this go through the washing machine and not get clean?? Is my shirt ruined??

And then it dawned on me that the shirt must have somehow gone directly from suitcase to dresser without passing through the dirty clothes hamper first, which meant ... this was fresh from Haiti spit up.

So, of course, I leaned down and smelled it.

Smelling the spit up had a magical effect ... I was immediately transported across time and miles to when I last held my baby boys in Haiti. The formula we took for them was different than what they were used to, so the smell of spit up was a regular part of our days there!

Smelling it here and now brought the boys closer to me than they have felt since we left them behind ... so much so that I as previously mentioned, I felt the sting of tears from the remembrance.

I also felt an immediate urge to find someone else and ask them to smell it.

I even took out my camera and snapped pictures of the stain.

And I seriously considered never washing the shirt again and sleeping with it until the boys come home.

That all sounds perfectly normal, right??

At least for a mom who's missing her boys like crazy ...

9 comments:

stephanie said...

My husband went to haiti to meet our little guy and he spit up on his shirt. he rolled up the shirt and brought it home for me to "meet" him! So, i completely understand. It was his favorite shirt, so i had to wash it!!

Mary said...

You sweet thing! The first time we visited Kenley we "stole" the outfit that we first saw him in. We stuck in a ziploc bag and took it home with us. Every now and then we would open up the bag and take a nice long wiff. Your story sounds perfectly normal to me because I too am just a mom who misses her little boy.

Future of Hope said...

Stephanie,
What a powerful picture of the intense love you have for your precious boys.

You are in our prayers, as are your sweet boys. Thanks for keeping all us bloggers (and lurkers) posted!

Erin (Nelson) Kealen

alejandra said...

Hola! viste q hermoso esta mi bombon!
no se si mi hermana recibio tu correo, en todo caso escribile de nuevo!
saludos
ale y christ

Anonymous said...

I must admit this does seem a little strange to me but I have never been in the position that you are waiting for your babies to come home. I cannot imagine how difficult this time has been. It is hard to carry a baby for 9 months and the waiting seems forever. We pray you soon will have your babies home. Then you will be able to do the laundry without a blip in the radar.

alejandra said...

uy te conteste en mi blog, fijate asi no lo escribo de nuevo!
saludos

Salzwedel Family said...

Sadly, this seems perfectly normal to me. I have a dress that Anchise wore one day in a ziploc bag so I can pull it out occasionally and take a big whiff. I miss her so much.

Patti said...

Stephanie - your reaction was so normal - so beautiful and I think it was a fantastic post.
Keeping you all in my prayers, dear friend. We need to catch up with eachother on SKYPE someday. :-) I miss talking to you. Hugs, Pep

Melissa said...

I don't think that it is strange at all. We are praying for a fast process in Haiti and for you all as you wait for Ian and Alec to finally come home.
Love,
Melissa