If You Think You Smell Poo—You Do

Do not question the nose.   After months of changing diapers, it is finely honed to tell you when your child has made a great big stinky mess.  I can be across the room working here, at the computer, and get a vague whiff.  I look over at my son who is playing happily—too happily—with his toys.  Am I imagining it?  Time and time again, my nose has proven me right.  It's time for a diaper change.

My husband still questions my nose from time to time.  Unless there is gas in question (which usually means there's a diaper change to follow shortly,) it turns out I have a pretty reliable sniffer.  When I was pregnant, it was even more honed.  There's something about being pregnant that makes all your senses a little more acute.  I'm no longer pregnant, but I can still sniff messy baby pants from a good clip.

So today, I was working at the computer.  My daughter was sleeping soundly, hadn't moved in a good while from the swing thing she sleeps in when in the basement.  I got a whiff and looked over.  Nope, she's not awake and she's not looking anything other than serene.  Can't be.  Thirty minutes later I get a second waft of something baby-foul.  Must be my imagination.

An hour later, my mother arrives and I start to prepare for dinner.  I tell her to let me know when the baby wakes up and I'll change her and feed her.   In a few minutes she calls up and says "you'd better get down here, she's wet this thing all the way through."  Ugh. All the way through means the diaper and outfit, right?  Nope, it means the whole swing seat thing.  The thing that I don't even know how to remove to wash.  Oh fun.

The baby needed a bath.  She was dirty all the way up to her belly button.  She got dirtier in other places when we got the clothes off her.  She wasn't particularly upset though.  That's my girl.  After she's cleaned and my mother is feeding her, I figure out that I can remove and wash the swing cover which was not only damp, but was wet all the way to the plastic underneath and smelled lovely.

The swing seat was on it's second baby and hadn't ever been washed so it was definitely due for a cleaning.  All is clean and happy now; but I won't doubt my nasal integrity again.

The Big Boy Update:  He's not good in the high chair or restaurant after he's done eating.  It means we can't go out with him for a dinner that's very long without annoying everyone around us.  I don't want that.  I never liked hearing a child be annoying near me so I don't expect other people to like it either.  We're working on having him a) not drop food on the floor just because there's a dog there sometimes and b) because he's full or he wants something else.  I hope he's too young to understand and that we've not let him make bad habits.  Tonight at dinner he played with some toys while he sat at his highchair after eating.  It went over well.  He was entertained and quiet.  I packed some small toys in the go bag for future meals out.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Reaction smiling.  If you smile at her, she smiles back.  It makes you keep smiling.  But if you stop, and then re-smile at her, she'll smile and giggle and coo at you again.  My husband figured this out.  Today we got a great video of her at her most adorable and charming.