Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Name that Smell

One of the greater challenges of my life is all of the odors that accompany eight children.

It all starts with diapers of various smells and consistencies when they are babies. Through the years it progresses to the "boy" smells that seem to permeate walls, carpets and entire rooms! This year we've added an entirely new smell to the mix - football gear. Fortunately, it has a new home in the garage.

I'm known to deal with this some what patiently - to a point. Then I lose it completely, strip all of the beds and run them through a hot wash, Febreeze the mattresses and carpets and FORCE my three young men to pull everything out from under the beds and dressers because that smell HAS to be coming from somewhere! Usually it's not anything particular, but the room looks great afterwards.

The girls have their own unique smells, as well. Fingernail polish, paints and markers, lotions and lip glosses, gum and mints. Although annoying, not nearly as repulsive.

For about three days, I've noticed a peculiar odor in the room that my three young daughters share. Truthfully, I haven't done a lot of searching for the source. There's been some kind of Bitty Baby/Polly Pocket convention going on in there and I was scared to look. I did take out the trash, but the smell was still there.

Today, my nephew came for lunch and playing after BSF with Grandmother. He and two of the girls (one home from school because of a fever yesterday) were playing in the girls' room. SO, I thought, perfect time for some sorting, putting away and general junk organizing.

Looking for shapes that fit in Bitty Baby's high chair (we only have two out of five, for some strange reason), I made a swipe under the dresser. To my amazement, out came a baby jar filled with blue liquid, sand and some kind of fish (I don't want to know). And the smell? The exact odor I'd been searching for for three days.

Ah Ha! (It was Daughter #7's from Sunday school)

Another mystery solved. I'm so glad I found it BEFORE I took all of the sheets off - those bunk beds are a pain to re-make!

10 comments:

Lori Leigh said...

Ugh, mysterious smells..... gotta love it.... ha!

Carla said...

Ha! I thought that kind of stuff only happened on tv shows!

jo said...

Oh yes oh yes. The famous fish smell. We had one of those too - remember? In the tackle box appropriately - but it smelled like a deceased person in our garage.

Anonymous said...

Oh, my! Thanks for the smile! It smelled like applesauce here today! I am very grateful though because it is all in the freezer now!

Jen S said...

I can totally relate to this and I only have 3 kids. I could tell stories!! The worst offense is definitely the football pads. SO awful! Reagan's stay in the garage too!

Beth said...

I have one of those stories...but, it ended up being my husband forgetting to actually freeze the fish after a big fishing trip...it had absolutely overtaken my house before I found it.

Laura said...

Don't you just love it!

Zimms Zoo said...

How fun! Sounds like our house.

Anonymous said...

Right! Ours was trash soon after we walked in the door of the house! Sorry to hear the Sweedish Fish could produce such an offensive aroma. That was our week in Sunday School, too!

Tricia said...

Hi, This is my first time to your blog. I read ZimmZoo's blog. I look forward to reading more of your posts. I agree as a mother of two boys, they have a smell. I thought I would share a story with you. A couple of years ago we got into our car and it smelled bad. We cleaned it out. Looked in every spot. Sprayed it and sprayed it. We could not find the source. After a month I reach between the seats and pull out some cheese, I think, that was in a ziplock. This was the source of the smell. We do not bring cheese in the car anymore. It was bad!! ;)