That fresh baby smell

So, when one thinks of baby smells that one expects to encounter sticking one's nose in a shaggy head of baby hair, most of us have some kind of platonic ideal smell in mind. It might be that ubiquitous Johnson and Johnson head-to-toe body wash fragrance that I love, it might be the milky smell of a spituppy newborn, it might just be the fresh warm baby smell entirely on its own.

Perhaps, if one is a parent of an older baby who insists on consuming quantities of fiber-rich fruit and veg that would put the average American to shame, one has less pleasant olfactory associations borne of the changing table.

But, I guarantee that no one thinks of stinky swiss cheese. Except us.

I was at first worried that our child was sweaty and gross or that we had somehow been remiss in cleaning some important crevice.

Later Stephanie put together that our child had just consumed mass quantities of a very aged, very pungent Gruyère, and the smell wore off on him. It was converted back to the Johnson and Johnson baby fragrance with a bath, but seriously, I need to write this down to remember the perplexing, "What IS that smell? What is WRONG with my baby?" followed by the dawning of realization that no, our child just really likes cheeses so stinky that Stephanie, who sort of is a swiss cheese fiend, admits that they might be a bit too pungent now. Best of all is that he will just gobble down entire blocks of it while other people might consume it sparingly because of its intensity. Gobbling is not a very tidy process, and there's a lot of smearing into his face and hair, and the smell lingers even if the area is wiped clean.

In fact, there is now a whole list of things that Jolyon shovels down with delight that Stephanie isn't that keen on:
- Olives
- Stinky cheese
- Soft runny melty ripe soft cheese
- Blue cheese
- Cheese that embodies the previous three qualities all at once
- Salmon (I'm a lapsed vegetarian, and Jolly gets to eat my fish because it's easier than dousing him with cod liver oil, now that he isn't getting his omega-3 fatty acids from Ephiny anymore).

Also, he absolutely loves chard stems, which Ephiny also greatly enjoys. Good thing, because this summer chard is the one thing we're reliably getting every single week.

Nearly every conversation I have with my mother she asks if he's walking yet... or talking more, perhaps? Nope. However, we count our blessings that Jolly is really superb (seriously, world-class champion level awesome) at the basics: eating, sleeping, and being happy. The rest will come!