Mysterious Smell

So Monday morning, as I went in to Emma's closet to get her clothes, I was hit in the face with a God-awful horrendous smell. And I mean horrendous. It smelled like soiled meat. It was so potent, I almost gagged right then and there. However, seeing as how it was 6:00 in the morning, and I had to get the kids up and to daycare and myself to work, I couldn't worry about it.

But as I'm relaying the story to my friends at work, I equated the smell to a dead animal. And then it hit me like a ton of bricks...."Oh, just great. We probably have a dead animal inbetween our drywall!" So when I got home, I told Andy my fear, and he was like, "Chris. It's not a dead animal. It smells like pee."

Fabulous.

So we get on our hands and knees (okay, well maybe "we" didn't...) and start sniffing the carpet to pinpoint the exact point of contact. And sure enough, there's a wet spot that is just skanking of smell. So we douse it with carpet cleaner in hopes that we can get the smell out. What's wierd, though, is that there wasn't a dark spot where the mysterious liquid "spilled" from. Obviously there wasn't, otherwise I wouldn't have left it there to rot all during the day!

So anyway, the night passes and the next morning when I go to get Emma's clothes out of her closet, I carefully open my nostrils. And--BAM--the smell's still there. And it's not gotten any better. So I'm like, "Andy, we need to rip the carpet out. There's no way around this. If, in fact, it is pee then it's saturated the carpet and all we'd be doing is masking the odor." So after much debate, he finally agrees to pull the carpet up. Well, actually. I shouldn't say that. He didn't agree. I just threatened to pull it up myself. He was determined to think that a professional carpet cleaner and deodorizer could fix the problem. I, however, knew otherwise.

So we rip the carpet up and you wouldn't believe what we saw....this mysterious liquid had seeped all the way through the carpet, all the way through the pad....to the floorboard. WTH?!?

Now, you may be wondering what happened. Good question. I'm still trying to figure that one out myself. It's gotta be one of two things.

1) Emma was sleep walking, and thought that her closet was the bathroom. So she gets up, walks to her closet, opens the door, sits down on the carpet/toilet, and empties her bladder. All 2 liters of it (gheesh, you'd think she'd released at least that much due to the stain left!). And this theory isn't so far-fetched because she gets up in the middle of the night every night to go to the bathroom by herself.

2) She did it out of spite. Let me explain. Sunday afternoon we went to the mall to get some shoes for Andy. Emma decided that she was going to run around the store, hide in the window display, then yell and cause a scene all throughout the store. Oh, hell no. After racing all throughout the store to get her, I immediately snatch her up and take her to the van. Yes, I was that mom who drags her kid through the mall. Yes, I was that mom who had steam rolling out of her head. This was the 3rd day in a row where Emma had acted up in public. And you will NOT act up in public and embarrass me like that! She knows better. So as soon as we got her, I made her go straight up to her room, and she was not coming out until after nap time (side note---it was nap time and she was tired and kranky, so a nap was in order). Of course, she cried and screamed, wanting to get out but I was NOT having it.

Soooooo, she could have gone pee in her closet out of spite, or perhaps fear. I can kinda see her doing that....but then I think, "No way. She wouldn't do that!" But I don't know....kids ARE amazing.  And Emma loves to push Mommy's buttons...

But, after all was said and done, I definitely needed to take a picture of this, as I know it's going to be a funny story years down the road from now. Just not now. Not when we have to rip the carpet up!