That Pee Smell

Via Public Domain Photos

When I lie on the couch to read, I want to relax, but that smell keeps coming to my nose: pee. It is somewhere in our house. I want to find the source, but the source is everywhere: the dirty diaper pail seven feet away, dirty laundry underneath the changing table, the toddler sitting next to me, the couch cushions, everywhere!

I remember going to friends' houses with babies and it would smell like pee. I swore that my house would never smell like that that. I knew that my house would stay clean. I kept my parent's home clean as a youngest child.

Now the pee smell never goes away as a mother of four boys. My toddler rips off his diapers multiple times a day. I find the diapers stuffed in random places. He pees and poops all over the house until I catch him. I wrangle a diaper on his bare butt. My husband taped his diaper on one night.

This doesn't include when the diaper overflows. The pee and poop leak on the couch and bed. Oh, it is just wonderful.

We potty-trained our third child last fall, but he still wears a pull-up for night time. He sometimes changes into underwear independently in the morning. Other times he doesn't. This is when the pull-up is leaking all over the couch in the morning. This is why I sniff pee on the couch when I read.

I thought once my boys were potty-trained the problems went away. Oh no, it doesn't. No one ever talks about bed-wetting. Enuresis. It's there. It keeps going. And you give your child the medication the doctor recommends...no it doesn't work. They just have a nasty reaction to it. Does your child reduce drinking before bedtime? Maybe for a few days. Then I am just too busy for the reminders anymore.

And then there is the advice from doctors and well-meaning people on potty-training and bed-wetting. One lady said she started poop training at six months old and potty-training at eighteen months old. She pressured me to potty train my oldest for a month. I had several people unnaturally pressure me to potty-train my oldest. I tried multiple times during eight moves in eighteen months and I only felt frustrated with my oldest. Outside pressure only made things worse for both of us.

Leave parents alone!

What can I expect from my children when I can't control my own bladder anymore? I rarely practiced all those Kegel exercises. When I sneeze from sun exposure, it comes it triples. My underwear is wet. And I still have occasional accidents when I have diarrhea. I just know how to clean it up myself.

So, I have become really good at cleaning pee in my house. I use baking soda laundry detergent, vinegar, and occasionally super washing soda and borax. My husband complained that his underwear smells like vinegar. That's because I use scent-free dryer sheets. My only goal is to have everything have a neutral smell in my home. I don't want to cover up the smell of pee with floral scents. I want it gone with pure and natural chemicals!