It's the Urine

Undoubtedly, shortly after announcing your first pregnancy, someone will try to gross you out by telling you baby poop stories. Exploding diapers. Diaperless exploding babies. "I hope you like to be ankle-deep in poop." You get the picture. Here is the truth: it's all a lie. It's not the poop. 

It's the urine. 

(Help me, God, that I'm writing about this. As I type, my lactose-intolerant son just sh*t his pants for the fourth time today, the fifth in 24 hours, because I thought he'd be fine with a small glass of chocolate milk last night. So, know that dealing with some poop is required. Let us not downplay that.)

But back to the issue at hand. I'm doing the breaststroke in urine, I feel. 

It started with our incontinent dog. Yes, I know that this is about peeing kids, but if you follow the rules of suburban family life, you have a dog, too, and when that dog gets old and grumpy, he stops giving a sh*t. (I'd watch my language if I wasn't so completely disgusted and frustrated.) Indy walks through the house and trickles pee. He prefers the carpet to anything that would require just a simple wipe-up. If you leave him outside too long, he'll squat right next to the baby and (you guessed it) urinate with joy. Herein lies my love-hate relationship with this dog.

Then, the kids. I have potty-trained three of them. Even Hatch, who will be three in two short months, is trained, even through the night. Yet, there are the accidents. My oldest calls them "pee dreams." (My husband says he remembers pee dreams. I have never in my life had a pee dream. But, as one would guess, they make you pee.) So, at least once a week, someone pees. On his mattress. Then, strips out of the pee pants, hides them someplace good, changes into clean pants and crawls in bed with us. Only when the wafting smell of sour and musky urine catches my nose several days later are the hidden pee pants discovered and, by then, the guilty party forgets who did it. It's the perfect plan. 

Recently, while stuck in traffic in a very long road trip, one of the boys had to pee. We couldn't pull over. We had an empty bottle. You know where this is going. It started off well, until we hit the world's smallest bump, sending a powerful and perfectly-arching stream of urine sideways, dousing Annie's car seat...and her face. She was screaming her face off, he was crying, my mother couldn't stop laughing, and my eardrums were bleeding. Stupid pee.

Hatch, the sweet (ok, that's a lie, too, he's the cutest little jerk in town) toddler, has inherited my sleep-walking. It's not terrible. Creepy, but not bad. Except, Hatch's version of sleepwalking includes urinating. On the couch and carpet. While Adam watches helplessly and confused.

Here is where things just fall apart. 

All I smell is pee. I've cleaned the carpets twice. I do laundry with fervor. I'm constantly toileting the kids and the dog and still...I can't stop smelling pee. I think it's absorbed into my mucus membranes. I find myself saying more than I should, "Why does this feel damp?" I will say it again, I am swimming in urine. And, truth be told, I'd rather it be poop. 

So, there is the truth. When people jokingly refer to the unappealing voiding habits of infants and children, what they mean to tell you is: that adorable little creature is going to cover everything you own in urine. And there is nothing you can do about it. 

And you will love them anyway. Because, urination and all, they are awesome. Event the sleepwalking-while-peeing ones. Even them. Just don't get super-attached to your carpeting, because it's getting ripped out with a vengeance when they hit middle school. I promise.