The Case of the Phantom Diaper

That title sounds like it's been cribbed from a Nancy Drew book (well, except for the diaper part. I read a lot of Nancy Drew books and never once did she deal with diapers). Hmm, I tend to channel Carolyn Keene (or whoever it was that really wrote those) an awful lot. Anyway, we sure could use Nancy and her sleuthing skills at our house right about now. We are definitely being haunted. In one corner of our living room. By a horrible smell.

I noticed it about a week ago. I just assumed that a certain little potty trainer who shall remain nameless had struck again. See, lately this potty trainer has switched to just wearing diapers at night. And sometimes if she has an overnight accident, she removes the evidence and hides it. The thing is, you don't know she's done it until it's too late. When you find it buried in her closet or under her bed a week later after a frantic search for the source of the dead muskrat smell, it's kind of a nightmare. We have had a lot of talks about how bad this diaper hiding is and I assumed we had kicked the habit. But the smell told me otherwise.

I said the potty trainer would remain nameless, not faceless. This picture and its mad little face actually have nothing to do with potty training. She was glowering at me because I was letting Chloe watch the Thriller video instead of letting her watch Billy Jean again. Yup, we spent all day Friday watching Michael Jackson videos. And we LOVED it.

I searched the area from whence the smell seemed to originate. I was certain I'd find a hidden diaper even though the potty trainer's MO is to hide the diaper in her room. But, as you can see, the title of this post is NOT The Case of the Hidden Diaper. There was nothing under the chair, behind the drapes, or even crammed in the vent. Just the smell. I literally put my nose to the ground and did a sniff search. Because, you know, you don't always need a diaper to achieve that dead muskrat smell. But I could not locate a source.

I was hoping that my poor sleep deprived brain was inventing this smell. Or that perhaps the smell of muskrat was just burned into my nostrils. In other words, I was hoping nobody else would notice. But then my parents came over to watch the girls and they totally noticed. They too completed a thorough search. And came up with nothing. It is truly a mystery. I obviously need to have the carpets cleaned. And an exorcism performed.

We had another mystery this week, but it was more satisfactorily solved. If it were a Nancy Drew book, it would be called The Legend of the Freaky Baby Belly. For the past few weeks, every time I changed one of Tessa's diapers I worried a little about the strange appearance of her tummy. And because I spend so much time changing her diapers, it was adding up to a lot of worrying. So I just went ahead and made an appointment to have her checked out. I assumed she had an umbilical hernia (which would explain the crazy huge outie belly button). And the doctor told me I was right. They're not a huge deal, I just have to check it every so often to make sure no internal organs come through. It should close on it's own in the next year or two. But her stomach also seemed oddly distended so the pediatrician also ordered some X rays. It was no fun getting them done (nor was it fun losing my keys in the hospital and not discovering it until we were in the 94 degree parking lot with a screaming baby. Thank goodness my mom was with me and my mother-in-law had the big girls. I wouldn't have survived that day otherwise. I NEVER lose keys. I attribute it to the lady at hospital admitting that kept commenting on how sad it was that there was something wrong with my baby. I was like, uh, we don't KNOW for sure there's something wrong. That's why we're getting X rays. Please shut up!). Thankfully, there is nothing wrong internally with her belly. It just looks freaky. Maybe we can avoid bikini arguments when she is a teenager if it remains this freaky. I would post pictures, but again, they're just too freaky (I wouldn't want to drive my blog further into R-rated territory. Yeah, you read that right. This blog is rated R. Apparently you can't talk about torture a lot or you get red banded.)

Anyway, if this isn't the grossest post I've ever done then I don't know what is. Sorry. But as you can see, it's been kind of crazy around here lately and that's why there haven't been updates. But it's okay because it really is sunshine and rainbows around here most of the time:

Photographic Proof of Sunshine and Rainbows at Our House

And that was taken out the window of the haunted section! Amazing!