Everyone Held My Grandson Except Me

A grandmother on the day a six-year-old said out loud what her whole family already knew, and the small change that put the baby back in her arms.

She asked us not to print her name. This is her story, in her own words.

"Mommy, is that why the new grandma doesn't get a turn? 'Cause she smells like Great-Nana's room?"

I'll never forget those words. They came from a six-year-old girl sitting on the hospital floor next to my chair, eleven hours after my first grandson was born.

That night I sat alone on the edge of my bed in the dark, still in my coat. I had left the blue blanket I knitted for him folded on that chair.

I used to be the one everybody handed the baby to.

For fourteen years I ran the baby room at our church. People called me the baby whisperer. A young mother would pass me a screaming infant at the back of the sanctuary, and five minutes later he'd be asleep on my shoulder.

When my daughter Kelsey told me she was expecting, I cried in the grocery store parking lot. I bought a rocking chair that same week.

Now I was the woman in the corner with her purse on her lap.

My family had noticed. I hadn't.

Looking back, the signs were all there.

At the baby shower, Kelsey asked me to sit by the door "to greet people." I sat there for three hours while everyone else crowded around the gifts.

For months she had stopped coming inside. She'd stand on my porch, one hand on her belly, and talk to me through the screen door. "Can't stay, Mom. My feet."

My husband, Russ, had started sleeping with the bedroom window open. In March.

The really hard part? I'm not even that old. I'm 61. I shower every day. I'm the woman who brings hand sanitizer to the church picnic.

Then came the hospital. Six people held Theo that morning. His daddy. His other grandma. His uncle, still in work boots. The uncle's girlfriend. My son-in-law's sister. My own husband.

Once, I stood up and held out my arms. Kelsey said, fast, "Oh, Mom, he's about to eat." Twenty minutes later she handed him to someone else.

Then little Ava said it, and the room went quiet. Nobody asked what she meant. Nobody laughed. Kelsey looked right at me, and then she looked away.

"What happened to me? I rocked half the babies in our church. When did I become the one nobody hands the baby to?"

Nobody could tell me anything useful

The next morning I called my sister, Lynn, and made her promise to be honest. "You smell like you," she said. "New grandmas are emotional." I wanted so badly to believe her.

Everything I found online told me to shower more or switch deodorant. I already did both.

So I made some mistakes, and a few of them cost money. I'm sharing them so you can skip them.

• A strong-scented body wash. It smelled nice for an hour.
• A new deodorant, twice a day. It only covered things up.
• Perfume on my collar. Russ rolled the car window down anyway.
• Two showers a day. My skin got dry and itchy, and nothing changed.
• Clean sheets every three days. The pillowcase smelled stale again by midweek.

The odd little fix my neighbor told me about

The answer came over the phone, from my neighbor Bonnie. She's 68 and lives two doors down.

She called on Sunday to ask about the baby. I meant to say, "He's perfect." Instead I cried and told her everything, even the part about Ava.

"Oh, hon," she said. "That was me four years ago. It isn't you being dirty. It's your skin. It changes."

Then she explained it. It was the first thing anyone had said that made sense.

As we get older, usually after 40, the skin starts making something called 2-nonenal (say it "two-NO-nuh-nal"). It's a natural oil with a faint, musty smell, a little like a closed-up room. It shows up on collars, pillowcases and scarves. It's not poor hygiene. It's biology.

Because it's an oil, regular soap can't wash it off. Soap is made for water-based sweat and everyday dirt. Picture a greasy pan under plain water. The water runs right over the grease. Perfume and deodorant just sit on top and cover it for a while.

And your own nose gets used to it. You live with it every day, so your brain stops noticing. That's why I couldn't smell a thing, and why a six-year-old could.

Then Bonnie said the word that sounded crazy to me. Persimmon.

I'll admit I rolled my eyes. A fruit? In soap? I had just spent good money on five things that smelled lovely and did nothing.

But here's the part that won me over. People in Japan have used persimmon for this for a long time. The tannin in it sticks to that oil and lifts it off your skin. It doesn't cover the smell. It takes away what's making it.

Bonnie used a soap called True Tannin. The company is named after the tannin, and the whole bar is built around it.

"But use it right," she said. "I didn't, my first week. That oil collects in five spots. And the tannin needs time on your skin."

1. Back of the neck
2. Behind the ears
3. Chest
4. Upper back
5. Hairline

Lather those five spots, leave the lather on for about half a minute, then rinse. Give it 30 days for the full effect.

What I wanted back

I wanted to hold my grandson. I wanted to rock him in that chair I bought and sing him the song I used to sing to Kelsey.

I wanted to sit next to my daughter on her couch, instead of talking to her through a screen door.

So I took a leap of faith and ordered a bar that night. I didn't even tell Russ.

Putting it to the test

The first night, I stood in the shower and counted to thirty, slow, with lather on the back of my neck. Then behind my ears. My chest. As much of my upper back as I could reach. My hairline.

I felt silly. I did it anyway.

It felt gentle. They soften it with coconut oil, green tea and hyaluronic acid, so it didn't dry my skin out the way all those double showers had.

The first few days I couldn't tell anything. Of course not. My nose was the one thing in the house that couldn't check.

At the end of the first week, Russ shut the bedroom window.

Around three weeks in, Kelsey asked me to come in and sit down. She made tea. We talked for an hour on her couch.

Then one night, a little past 3 a.m., my phone rang. It was Kelsey, crying. Theo had fussed for four hours, Matt was working nights, and she hadn't slept in two days.

"Mom, can you come?"

I was there in eleven minutes, in my slippers. She opened the door and put him straight into my arms. No pause. No "he's about to eat."

I walked him up and down the hall, humming the same song I hummed to her. In ten minutes he was asleep on my chest.

From the couch, half asleep, Kelsey said very quietly, "You smell like you again, Mom."

What makes True Tannin different?

• Built around persimmon tannin, which sticks to the musty oil and lifts it off instead of covering it
• Made to be used on the five spots where that oil collects, with half a minute of lather
• Softened with coconut oil, green tea and hyaluronic acid, so it doesn't dry older skin
• No sulfates, no parabens, no heavy synthetic fragrance
• One bar lasts about four weeks

Where can I get it?

A bar is $19.95 and lasts about four weeks. That's less than a dollar a day. I spent more than that on perfume that did nothing.

And they stand behind it. Their promise, word for word: "Use it for a full 60 days. If you do not smell fresher, email us and we send back 100% of your money. The bar is yours to keep either way."

I think about what those weeks cost me. Six turns in a hospital room. A blanket left on a chair.

If your family has started staying on the porch, or somebody keeps cracking a window around you, it isn't you. Wash the five spots, give it half a minute, and give it 30 days.

Theo has the blue blanket now. And on Tuesdays, I'm the one who rocks him to sleep.