Didn't I Feed You Yesterday__ A Mother's Guide to Sanity in Stilettos - Laura Bennett [29]
As much fun as this apartment is, it also has its drawbacks. It’s an open-plan loft, so we basically live in one big room. There are two bedrooms, one large and one small. The large one is filled with bunk beds that are not specifically assigned. First come, first served—if you want to sleep on the bottom, then go to bed first. The smaller bedroom harbors Peter, the baby, and me, but not always in that order.
Because the bedrooms leave little space for activities other than sleeping, everything else—with the exception of bathroom things—happens out in the open, and often we are in a state of Too Much Information.
Finding space around here can prove challenging. I wind up hiding in that fallback safe haven, the bathroom. What’s not to love about a room designed for one that has a locking door? And who can possibly argue with the reply “Not now, I’m on the toilet”? If things get too overwhelming, I just schedule myself a dentist appointment. There is nothing like a root canal to secure some guilt-free me time. One medicated hour in the chair with no disturbances can be pure bliss, and as a special bonus, I get to leave with a Vicodin prescription.
Constant proximity to my family is not a problem for now, but may become one in the very near future. I fear man smell the way some people fear snakes or spiders, and because I have five boys, my fears are not unfounded. An older boy named Oskar lives in our building; when he was going through puberty, I could literally smell him move past our floor in the elevator. My thirteen-year-old hasn’t yet fallen headlong into the fetid depths of puberty, but one stroll down the seventh-grade hallway gives me a hint of what I am in for, and it doesn’t smell pretty. It is the putrid hormonal byproduct of boys turning into men.
“Why do you all smell so bad?” I asked Peik after I was safely outside the building and once again able to breathe through my nose.
“You mean this?” He struck a superhero pose. “I busted in there, and with one flex the smell of man bounced off the walls.”
“Put your man smell away already,” I said, trying not to laugh at him.
In an attempt to ward off the inevitable, I have tried to stock up on odor-blocking body products, the way John Birch Society members fill their basements with canned food, but in my heart I know there isn’t enough Old Spice High Endurance Long Lasting Stop Smelling Up My Damn House Deodorant Stick in the world. And really, what is more disgusting, the stench of newly minted manhood, or the stench of newly minted manhood with a side order of “Mountain Fresh”?
I’ve done the math. Assuming man smell lasts for only two years—and I trust it is temporary, because my husband doesn’t stink—by the time all five of my boys have passed through the noisome years of puberty and I can take a deep breath in my own home, the year will be 2023.
Mini-men aren’t the only thing with an off smell in this loft. Our apartment could double as a petting zoo. I have successfully denied the kids anything large that would really require care, like a dog or a cat, but the small animals keep making their way into our household. We have a goldfish named Bubble Bath who swims in a vase on the kitchen counter, completely ignored by whichever child asserted that he would “prove I can take care of a dog” by receiving the fish. It was a short stroll to the hamster request. Ours is an insomniac who spends his nights running on a wheel that squeaks, and his days attempting to chew his way out of his ten-gallon glass aquarium home. I have applied countless rounds of WD-40 to that little circus ride,