Urine, Too Much Urine

It was bright.

Too bright.

I glanced out the window at the frozen ground, covered with crusty snow, reflecting all the harshness of the sun's rays back into the nursery. My eyes, offended by the fiery whiteness, blanched with pain.

Bright snow did not help the brewing headache.

I stepped away from the window to turn my attention to the girl -- the unclothed girl -- who was dancing gleefully around the room. She'd stripped her clothes off in an attempt to delay naptime, but I wasn't playing along: she could sleep naked for all I cared. Naptime was here.

She scaled the side of her sister's crib and plopped down to have a pretend nap while I closed the window shades and straightened up the room. In my almost-headached state, I was dismayed to hear what happened next.

UH-OH! Maaaaaamaaaa! Lauren's bed is peed on! It's EVERYWHERE!!

I sidled up to the crib (none too anxious to see the damage) and beheld the broadest, yellowest, soppiest pee stain I'd ever witnessed before. And I've seen my fair share. It seeped out to her blankets, wadded at the foot of the bed. It eased up to her pillow. It covered at least half of the entire crib mattress -- the middle of the crib was soaked from bumper to bumper.

Groaning, I hauled the girl from the wet mattress and began answering her myriad questions while I stripped the bed.

Where did all that PEE come from, mama? (I guess it must've been from Lauren, she woke up with a too-wet diaper in the middle of the night last night...but there couldn't have been THIS much...)

Why did she PEE so much, mama? (I don't know, baby.)

Oh, *hehe* she must have had TOO much water! (Yes, Mia, you're probably right. Huh. You would think I would have noticed so much pee when I laid her down in a clean diaper.)

Why did her diaper not hold it all? (I don't know, babe. But I KNOW I would have noticed this when she woke up this morning. Huh.)

I was stumped.

Too stumped.

I hauled the stinking mess of sheets, blankets, pillow, and mattress liner to the hallway. The fumes were enough to make me stumble and grimace before I made it to the laundry room.

This didn't make any sense. Lauren had woken up, crying, at 2:30 that morning. She was pushing at her diaper, moaning take off, take off. I had felt her hips, and sure enough, her pajamas were cold and wet with overflowed urine. I changed her into a clean diaper and pajamas, and she fell right back to sleep. When she woke up in the morning, she was happy...and dry. There was no way she could have laid in that crib and been anything other than soaked if the pee had been there at the same time as her.

I mentally retraced my steps that morning, making sure I'd not felt a wet baby at any point in time. Shaking my head, knotting my brow, I concentrated.

Nothing.

There was nothing.

Still confused, I went to retrieve a clean sheet and pillow from the other bedroom. The bedroom which had not yet been darkened for naptime -- through the window, the glaring snow assaulted my eyes once again. I shivered a little, thinking about how cold it was out there. So cold and frozen, in fact, that we'd allowed our outdoor cat to spend a few hours of each day, for the past 3 days, indoors. In the warmth. We were feeling benevolent with the holidays, and hated to see him tiptoeing across the iced-over snow.

As memories usually play back -- in rushes -- yesterday's conversation with my husband's grandmother zoomed through my thoughts.

Now you have a litter box for him, right? You don't?! Oh, my goodness. You'd better get him one quick if he's going to be indoors for any length of time. If the snow is too frozen for him to dig in, he'll just hold it all in until he can find a soft place to go.

A soft place to go...

I stopped what I was doing and stomped to the laundry room. I picked up the least peed-upon item of bedclothes, the pillow, and gave a quick sniff. Blech.

Cat pee. Definitely cat pee.

The mystery was solved. I turned the washing machine on to HOT and dumped the load into the bubbling water, determined to eradicate the smell of cat urine from my daughter's bedsheets.

I finished up the crib-makeover, read stories to the sleepy girls, and put them to bed. In clean, soft, warm beds. I wandered to the kitchen, peeked out the back door, and there he was.

The cat.

He stretched up to the doorknob, rattling and mewing to be let inside. I squinted through the bright afternoon light and smirked a threatening grin at him. His days of cozy comfort were over. So much for being benevolent.

It was trouble.

Too much trouble.