Toxic Trashcans

We are almost officially out of the diaper stage.

I say 'almost' because we are still in the night time diaper stage. Because I am not a big fan of changing sheets every single day, I force my sweet children to wear 'baby diapers' (which they hate) each night and cut off the beverage supply about two hours before bed.

This is no small feat.

My girls become dehydrated every evening around 8pm. Tonight the youngest even asked if she could have milk. Milk! I can't get her to drink one measly ounce of milk with breakfast. She begins her gagging and dry heaving routine after even a tiny sip during the day, but once the threat of bedtime looms ever nearer, milk suddenly sounds like the sweet nectar of life to her. She can't get enough, I tell you.

Also not a small feat is getting them stuffed into the night time diapers. You need to know that we are rather cheap. When we see less expensive options, we go for it if it will work at all. Who needs name brand chips? Not us. Publix brand is just fine (and slightly less tempting for my husband b/c it's a grocery store brand), so win/win. Detergent? Costco brand. $12 cheaper for the same amount than Tide (though we do miss the happy Tide smell and have to use dryer sheets to make our clothes smell name brand).

The same holds true for pull-ups. They're like $13 more or something like that than size 6 diapers. Our mamas didn't raise no fools. And so, every night we struggle just a tiny bit to fit the heavy sleepers of our family into size 6 diapers. They are not big fans.

We just tell them they're supposed to fit like that and if they start losing feeling in their legs, to come get us and we'll apply more duct tape so the openings can be made bigger. Problem solved. With all the money we just saved we can keep NetFlix or go out for ice cream or (and more likely) buy our oldest child yet ANOTHER pair of flip flops because the dog keeps eating them.

So, talk of night time diapers brings me to the actual point of this blog. I know. It took me a while.

Each morning, my bleary-eyed, tossle headed babies emerge from their beds. I am fairly convinced that they have embedded some kind of tracking device on my person somewhere, because they immediately find me no matter where I am or what I am doing. I can be doing laundry or sitting on the back porch or making breakfast and they know exactly where to find me at every moment. I think that small children tracking their mothers may just be the inspiration behind Big Brother. I get that "being watched" feeling a lot at my house.

Anyway, they find me each morning and I immediately tell them to take off their diapers and put them in the trash.

Now my goal is to empty the trash every couple of days from the upstairs bathrooms.

This is my goal. It rarely happens. I have a lot of goals like that now that I think about it.

And so, inevitably, I forget all about it until the moment I walk into one of the bathrooms and am nearly knocked to my knees by the odor of old wet diapers. It is a smell so powerful it can make you light headed with ammonia fumes. This smell, repulsive to humans, is like the song of the Sirens to our puppy. He CANNOT resist. He has been known to chase the kids thru the house trying to grab their wet diapers which were being taken to the trash.

A couple weeks ago I had the pleasant task of taking apart my vacuum cleaner because every time I turned it on, the smell of wet diaper overpowered me. I had used it to clean up the million pieces of wet diaper which the beloved puppy had shredded everywhere, and the odor had made itself at home in the different compartments and hoses.

Some moms have trouble with forgetting about sippy cups for weeks at a time and then finding them practically walking around with sour milk in them. Others confess to being fairly adverse to cleaning their refrigerators and the unpleasantness that goes along with that. Our problem is the stinky wet diaper trashcans.

If you get a whiff of ammonia the next time I'm around you, just give me a gentle reminder and send me on my way. But please make sure I am wearing an ID bracelet because with all the poison air I've been breathing for the last 8 years, the old brain isn't what it used to be.