Baby Fish Mouth

Terza has a new nickname. I hope it doesn't stick. I wouldn't want Baby Fish Mouth to follow her on the recess playground. Nonetheless, there's no possible way we could not call her that when her baby mouth smelled so much like fish.

I was about 14 when I first watched When Harry Met Sally, so the term Baby FIsh Mouth has been lodged in my brain for more than 20 years.What does that even mean? I have wondered on more than one occasion.

Well, now I know. Baby Fish Mouth refers to a baby -- the more adorable, the better - who has the same halitosis a shark would have, whose perfect, rosy little mouth emits an epic stank, like Canal Street on an August day.

I know why Terza ended up Baby Fish Mouth; she ate some haddock at my grandmother's house. But didn't smell as though she ate the fish. It smelled like she bathed in it, like she swam right up into the carcass of a haddock and shampooed her hair with its intestines. The smell clung to her all over but when she opened her mouth to give me a big juicy, open-mouthed kiss - it positively reeked. It reeked worse than the time I brought back dried fish from Iceland in my suitcase.

"AHHHH!" shrieked Primo, "The baby stinks!"

Seconda just collapsedbaby fish  on the floor in hysterical chortles.

"Give that baby a shower," said David, holding his nose, "And wash her mouth out with -- I don't know -- can babies use mouthwash?"

"This is why i have to stay alive at all costs," I replied, "Because if I wasn't here, you'd be Listerine-ing our 15 month-old."

I gave her a shower, scrubbed well with soap and then let her drown out the taste of fish with the manna of breast milk. It did the trick. She was restored to Baby Milk Mouth. Just the way we like her.