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"I smell poop."As a follow up to our discussion on Phantom Cry Syndrome, I present another unfortunate psychological byproduct of taking care of children: Phantom Poop Syndrome.
I really don't need to go into a lot of detail here. If you've spent enough time with babies the difference between a foul smelling room and a pleasant smelling room will slowly fade. Perhaps our sense of smell has retreated to its happy place, but soon enough we will have to literally stick our nose in horrible places to determine if the baby needs to be changed, something the house guests have known for the last five horrible minutes.
As an added joke on us, for some reason we start to smell poop when it's not there. We turn to our significant other, with whom we used to have intelligent conversations, and ask, "do you smell poop?" Even more cruel, we smell poop when the kids aren't even around. It's not a strong smell - if it were that meant that either we somehow got poop on our hands or clothes, or just drove past a mulch pile. It's very weak and very subtle, but just strong enough for us to dread having to change another dirty diaper.
Ah, the joys of parenting!
On a side note, when I started this blog I promised myself that I wouldn't write about poop. But children have a way of wearing down any resolve I have, and with a third on the way I'm liable to write about anything, so watch out.
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6 comments:
That is hilarious! Over the weekend I was watching my niece and the HTB kept asking me if she needed to be changed - every.five.minutes. Looks like there is a long phantom poop road ahead of me!
I swear I still smell poopie even though my daughter is out of diapers. It will probably be many years until I have a nose that's sensitive to the smell of poop. And it's really sad when you go to the zoo and it doesn't smell all that bad.
While I am out of the Phantom Poop experience (kids are 12 and 6), it seems that I cannot fully escape the problem.
I have 2 cats and a dog that are increasingly, shall we say, NOT WELL BEHAVED. I have no idea what's up with them, but Phantom Animal Poop and Phantom Animal Pee have sent us in frenzies of disenfecting entire rooms...with bleach...with no guarantee that we got the source of the Phantom slight odor.
Ahhh, you described my problem perfectly. Every time I walk into our house I smell poop. It drives me nuts and makes me oh so paranoid when we have guests. I buzz around the house spraying air freshner, which then just makes the house smell of poop with a hint of cinnamon. *sigh* This does go away doesn't it?
Is it possible the worst possible feeling is when the Phantom Poop Syndrome is not so "phantom"? As in, after thinking I am just smelling a thrown away dirty diaper I, unfortunately, discovered a smidgeon of poo on my shirt or on my arm, etc. Thus my new-found infatuation with bleach.
It's been so long, I forgot how you can get rid of the phantom poop smell forever.
NO DIAPER PAILS.
Yes, they are the culprit. If you have a poopy diaper, as soon as you change it, throw it away OUTSIDE.
This completely eliminated the phantom poop smell. It also eliminated the awful changing the diaper pail bag task.
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