Stinky house + Walking with two toddlers in the winter

Imagine this covered in ice and snow ...

Am I the only one whose house smells like poo?

Just wondering. Because it does. And it bugs me.

It's not like we don't try hard, either. I change the diaper pails about every three days (far before they're full, which is when I used to change them, back when I only had one pooper). I usually spray the pails with disinfectant and wipe them out and when Chris comes home, he takes the bags outside.

But still. Constant reek.

And the worst part is, if it smells bad to me, what does it smell like to people who don't live here all the time (I'm sure my brain has habituated to it at least a little). Are they like, "Let's not go visit that house today ... it stinks."?

I'm not sure what else to do, other than potty train (tried that for about 1/2 a day yesterday and was exhausted). Nate's room is the worst (he is a stink machine) but I can't exactly open a window to air things out, not in the dead of winter.

So if you come visit my house, consider yourself warned.

Speaking of winter, actually made it out of the house this morning. We were getting a little "shack wacky" (as my friend Mel calls it) and decided to venture to the library.

Which is supposed to be close. When we were house hunting, I was insistent (some would call it stubborn) that our home be within walking distance of the "downtown" amenities (library, bridge, grocery, sportsplex, etc).

When we found this place, we could actually see the bridge from our driveway and Google Maps told me it was only a 15 min walk to the library. Hooray!

It's not true. Not in a winter snowstorm with two young toddlers and a vicious hill in between. (I have take to calling our city, "Lil 'Frisco" because of the insane hills. Seriously!)

Because of this, I've decided that Google Maps needs to have a sub-feature under Walking called "Walking with two toddlers in the winter."

This feature would automatically add 20 minutes of prep time for dressing them (e.g. chasing, pining down, wrapping in various articles of clothing, more chasing, boy crying, searching for a soother to end the crying, searching for various articles of clothing that have been removed and strewn throughout the house by girl while grownup was looking for soother, lugging gigantic double jogging stroller up from basement, treating wounds suffered from lugging pointy stroller up from basement, stuffing two marshmallowed, thrashing kids into restraints within stroller, chugging cold coffee to boost morale, etc).

It would then add extra time depending on wind. For example, the wind speed is 35 km today. Which meant every time a big gust came, it became twice as hard to push the gigantic stroller, not to mention having to constantly stop to reassure the little chickens squawking inside that they weren't actually going to DIE from a bit of cold air.

And the hill. My own personal Everest. I think at one point, the incline is actually 45 degrees. Which may not sound that bad but when combined with pushing almost 100 lbs of weight (32 lb stroller + about 60 lbs of little piglets) in front of you, it's madness.

I actually made Mela yell "Go Mama!" the whole way up the damn hill, both to keep her awake (not that she's napping now) and help me survive. The only good thing I can say about it is that maybe I'll get really ripped from living here.

So anyway, the "15 minute walk" is actually half an hour. Of torture. Not including getting-out-of-the-house time. Didn't tell me that, did you, oh mighty Google??!

But at least we got out. I may have pulled both hamstrings and fed my children nothing but lemon scones from a (awesome) coffee shop for lunch but we have new books to read and we got out.

I'm staying inside tomorrow.

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Today's photo series is called, "Nate the Vampire." The good news is, he likes my beet soup. The bad news is, well, it can look pretty gruesome: