"baby crack"

You know that unbelievable smell little babies have? My friends Jere & Rebecca call it "baby crack." Ever since having a baby, I've come to realize that baby crack is only one piece of the perfectly evolved codependency that is procreation. Where there is baby crack, there is mama crack.

The first hint of this was when I realized that baby Fausto doesn't lick everyone who holds him. For the first month, every time I'd carry him he'd start licking me like a kitten laps up milk. Shoulders are his favorite, but any available mama skin or clothes will do. In the last couple of days he's become more of a daddy's boy and now even licks daddy's t-shirt, but papa crack is a whole new thing.

Early this morning, I was burping him when the baby crack became overpowering. I stopped what I was doing and buried my nose in Fausto's neck, taking in giant, intoxicating whiffs of the good stuff. And then I noticed that baby was no longer squirming or fussing the way he does when he needs to burp; he was licking. There we were, mama and baby, playing out the sort of ritual you'd expect to see in the zoo.

Fausto's latest lesson to his mommy: we're animals, and there's nothing wrong with that.