just so you know
(i still plan to rain on your parade)
((hannah and caroline and me, part nineteen))


i am about to tell you something that is going to either sound completely weird or completely understood. you can let me know where you stand.

one of my favorite smells in the whole wide world is...

drumroll please...

the smell of hannah sweating as she is taking a nap on the couch. does that make me gross? or does it just make me a parent? i am ok either way. it is unmistakable. and in the last almost five years, it has jumped into my top three of all smells. the other two? marie's dressing (surely no surprise there for those that know me) and the smell of my own mom's chili. and i will say, the smell of my own mother's chili only grows more and more romantic and wonderful in my mind and senses every passing day considering it's probably been ten-plus years since i've tasted it. there is no way the actual smell could live up to the smell in my head if i came home to it today. it's not just the smell of the chili. it's the smell of her chili after i mix up so much shredded cheese and soup crackers with it that it has the most perfect paste feel to it. like i could spackle with it (not that i would ever spackle anything.). but mom's chili is one of those things that i have built up to such a degree in my head that i may as well never have it again. it would completely ruin it. and i am ok with that. i think she would be happy to know that it left such an impact. oh well. i digress.

back to hannah sweat. hannah and i had our first daddy/daughter day in quite some time tuesday. i accompanied her class to the hargis pumpkin patch. from what i could tell, all the kids, minus maybe cameron, had a grand 'ole time. hannah was no exception. she was an absolute trooper from the word "go". i am sure it helped that she was carrying along the only daddy in the group.

i intentionally wore a button up shirt with the sleeves rolled up to look the part of a "dad". i still had my blue tennis shoes on, so i wasn't quite "outdoorsman dad", but it was just a pumpkin patch, right? had we been going camping, those moms and those teachers and those kids would have been screwed.

when we arrived at the camp, we listened to our instructions and then hit the beaten path. i had my girl, other girls and one boy using me as mr. swing the entire way, which i was fine with. even though i was breaking a sweat in the quite cool weather, i told myself i needed the exercise and sucked it up. it tickled the kids, so it tickled me. we did the hay ride. i played the role of "dad" again and roasted most of the hot dogs and marshmallows. just to illustrate how foreign this should seem, our children's place director placed a call to ms. ellen in the kitchen back at the church and they had a wonderful laugh at my expense. "kevin's cooking the hot dogs??? bwabwabwa!!!" laugh it up, ladies. laugh it up. it's fine. i deserve it. we learned about the life-cycle of pumpkins. we petted a goat and very small horses (kind of random, i know). we marched through a living, breathing pumpkin patch. we listened to a story in an "indian tent". we picked out our pumpkins. and that was the day. a full day, indeed. and a fun one at that.

by the time we got back to our cars/bus, the kids were spent, but hannah held it together. we recounted our day on the way back to town and finally made it home after a stop at sonic for a slush. hannah lives a very hard life, don't you know? when we got to the house hannah had a difficult time completely winding down from the day, but as i kicked it into high gear with my rocky training montage exercise routine, she fell asleep.

and about thirty minutes later, there it was. that beautiful smell. fast asleep. body temperature naturally rising to keep her cozy and peaceful, the aroma, to her daddy, is nothing short of what heaven should smell like. every time i inhale, it reminds me that i have a beautiful baby girl close to me dreaming of princesses and barbie dolls and wizards of waverly place. it reminds me of how lucky she is that she is unaware of the world that has been swirling around her daddy for the last month. it reminds me that when she is old enough to be aware, i won't give a crap about it any more other than the story that i can tell her about that one time when "we" all thought the church was going to explode except that it never really was because humc was and is always going to be bigger than "we".

the smell of hannah's sweat will one day be a lot like that smell of mom's chili. i won't get it anymore. and i will romanticize it. and i will dream about it. and i will tell stories about it. and it will become much better than the real sweat ever was. and it will transform into a metaphor the way all things eventually do.

life can get pretty effed up if and when we don't take the time to smell our children's sweat (or the roses. to each their own.) for almost five years, i've had a precious little girl to remind me of that from time to time. now, i even have two!!! i should never slip into "life sucks. i wanna punch somebody!" mode. but i do.

because i am stupid.

aren't we all.