I have an abnormal sense of taste…meaning I can taste when hamburger has been refrigerated, so I can sympathize with the smell thing. I would guess these things. Winter so perhaps the main sewer line has dried up. We had this weird smell (although both of us could smell it) and my husband had drained the dehumidifier into a not often used drain and it dried something out so I ran a bunch of water in the drain and it resealed the main drain or whatever. The other thing I would check is the stink pipe. Usually on the roof? Anyway, sometimes that can get blocked and needs cleared? I don’t really know much about it but those would be my guesses based on my experiences. I do think it is strange that only you can smell it…can Riley smell it too?

I was a substitute teacher for a while and had to do all day kindergarten a time or two. It was AWFUL. The kids basically checked out/were full of energy for the second half of the day. I would definitely not recommend it!

There was an episode of Holmes Inspection on HGTV recently where the home owners had a horrible smell under their kitchen. It turned out that the soil below the house was mostly clay and apparently when clay is wet it leaves a putrid smell behind. Hope tha’s not it, because the “fix” was to tear up the kitchen floor and lay new foundation.

Satan’s Taint? HAHAHAHHAHAHA

Yes yes yes to FULL day Kindergarten. Granted, we went that route as both parents work. Regardless, about half the full-day class had a SAHP. Why do I endorse it? Because the full-day has more “enrichment” and time to socialize and have fun than the 1/2 days.

Our full day kids had the usual morning with reading, numbers, lessons that the 1/2 day class had. In the afternoons – the full day kids had music, gym, computer, (extra) libraray and science lab that the 1/2 days kids did not. Weird as our school district is, the 1/2 day kids only went to school M-Th. No idea why. There was concern from parents in both classrooms on how the 1/2 days would not fall behind. We were assured that both classes had the same required academic curriculum in the year.

In my observations – not founded in any trained study or subject knowledge – the full days kids had more opportunity for group activity, learning routine and sharing in a different fashion than pre-school. They also had more time in the day to get through the curriculum that allowed the teacher to spend more time where needed. It also appeared they had a jump on the 1/2 day class since by 1st grade they already knew about the science lab, how to behave, what an experiment was, etc. And socially, the 1/2 days kids complained about *not* having all the cool stuff in school like the full day (including the extra recess).

Yes, it’s a pain in the freaking ass that you have to pay for it. I’ve heard rumors in our school district that full day may become the norm before too long. Back in my day (haha) kids didn’t have pre-school as it exists today. They didn’t know things that Kindergarteners now take for granted. Some of my daughter’s friends showed up in K reading chapter books! Some already new addition/subtraction/multiplication. The kids today are more prepared to start school and have a jump on Kindergarten that I did not back in the 70s.

So – my two cents – sign him up!

On the subject of Kindergarten, our school also did only half days. However, the local rec center had a Kindergarten program in the afternoons and would pick up kids from my son’s school for the program. We signed him up for that and have been very happy that we did. We’ve found that the additional time with his peers and working on the concepts he’s learning has been very helpful. But I should also disclose that he has been diagnosed with ADHD, and often needs to work on something over an over again before it sinks in. And the additional time in school helps with that.

Wow- we had the same kind of weekend! My husband too went under the house to pull out a long dead mouse that was smelling up our living room. Crazy how something so darn small can smell THAT BAD but it does. HORRIBLE!
This is the second time having to go on this hunt since we have lived in this house and this weekend the little bugger was a little harder to find. Maybe your lingering smell is due to there being more than one? My husband found ours tucked up into the insulation under the house. Perhaps there is another one hiding up there and JB couldnt see it? Just a thought……..

Well, I don’t know about the house smell. Perhaps the smell is kinda, IN the system now?

We put our daughter into half day kindergarten with another half day of enrichment after. This was primarily due to work schedules, since we didn’t have catching up to do or anything, but I feel it benefitted her. I mean, is there such a thing as too much school (in America)? She has been a stellar student from Day One, though I don’t know if I can attribute that to the extra time she spent in school during Kindergarten.

I’m just going to say it is probably the lingering ghost of your dead rat and that I empathize. I once cleaned our basement and came upon a non squishy but still plenty dead and dried mouse. It stunk for about ever and was actually worst once we moved it. It took a lot of bleach, is all I’m saying on that one.

Good luck!

No clue on the smell… I think it’s lucky, my sense of smell is crap, so I don’t even really notice when the cat box gets bad.

But my son is halfway through his first year of all day kindergarten and loves it. We have friends whose son was in half day last year, and their comment was that, with mandatory testing and curriculum stuff being the norm, a half-day kindergarten is all business, for the full 2 1/2 hours. With a full day, the kids have extra time for recess, social stuff, music, art, Spanish, gym, library and computer time built in.

But we’re in a pretty well-funded district… if there weren’t extra scheduled in all day, it might drain teachers and kids.

Sometimes natural gas has a dead animal smell. Check it out. Or do you heat with electric?

Maybe this link can help?

http://boards.diynetwork.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/960107171/m/4211049814

We also have the option of paid all-day kindergarden. I’m going half day because I’m so excited to not have to PAY for my twins to get through a day for the first time since they were 3 months old. I, like you, have cobbled together a part-time income, and I think we can get through another year that way. But, also, it’s selfish. I enjoy their company. I want the time. Go with your gut. There’s no way Riley will suffer academically with you as his mother. That much is clear.

We live east of Redmond, and chose 1/2 day kinder for our oldest two. The academic part is identical, just spread out for full day. Both options get library, music, PE, computer, etc. Full day gets a few more crafts and extra recess. The only drawback to 1/2 day for me was, just like preschool, it seemed that after dropping them off in the morning, I was turning right back around to pick them up two hours later. Not much time to get anything accomplished.

I ferreted out a pervasive stinky smell recently: vitamin pills in a travel case gone bad. Really really nasty. The smell persisted even after eliminating the source & I eventually had to throw away the pill container. Husband didn’t smell a thing.

yucky, on the rats…we had the SAME thing — I thought I was going insane too because I couldn’t figure out what the smell was. Garbage can, fridge, kids?…Turns out it was five dead rats under the house.

There was a giant hole in our crawlspace and those bastards had made a little home for themselves underneath my kitchen. They also tore up the crawlspace and the plastic what hangs down – can’t remember what it’s called — all had to be replaced. Live on the Eastside. Used Arden Pest Control and Clean Crawls. Both great.

Gotta give my two cents on Kindy. Oldest did half day — he was very ready for full day but I wasn’t. Youngest did half day. He wasn’t ready for full day but I TOTALLY was. That was a tough one.

Academically — Half day wasn’t that challenging but they are only 5 and we had lots of fun hanging out and doing fun stuff.

My kids are older now and I don’t see a difference academically between kids that did half day and kids that did whole day.

Kinda feel like it’s a personal decision. Are they socially/academically ready? Are you ready? And having kids in school all day is AWESOME!

The benefit that I could see to one full day is that he would be used to being in a school environment for one full day. I know that can be a hard transition. Also, if it were me, I’d be all, “they’ll be gone for one FULL day! Yay!”. But that’s just me, maybe.

Data in Edmonds School District, WA indicates that while low-income children benefit greatly (and I do mean greatly) from full-day K, wealthier kids do not. Their data is identical to other half-day kids from the same income bracket. (Presumably because these kids are either learning something at day care or from home care, whether a nanny or family member.)

The social benefits of being in school all day are harder to measure. But I wonder if full-day school might not be a better idea just in terms of that.Increasing opportunities to deal with other authoritative adults, as well as make friends and learning to deal with less socially adept kids seem important to me.

The smell thing happens to me all the time. I vaguely recall reading something years ago about some study that showed women generally do have a much better sense of smell than men – thanks again Mother Nature!

As far as the full-day kindergarten thing goes I echo the other comments that suggested finding out what the situation is with most of the other K kids. In my son’s school they had 75 kindergarden kids his year and only 3 of them went half day. The teachers who were frank about it admitted that as a result the half-day kids suffered when it came to first grade. If the situation isn’t so extreme where R will go to K, I say do what you think is best for R’s level of development etc.

I’ve had good luck tackling unpleasant smells with the range of Fresh Wave products – which I’ve purchased at Bed Bath and Beyond and have seen at Whole Foods. Fresh smelling, not artificial. They even have “pearls” you can put in your vaccuum cleaner to purge the “old dog hair” smell that starts up whenever you turn it on.

(A smell like that can slowly drive you insane. That’s essentially how I felt about 10th grade, when the formaldehyde that covered all of our biology lab samples took hold of my taste buds and everything else for the better part of the year.)

I haven’t read all the comments, but I will offer that I had a similar under-the-house-corpse experience recently and removing the corpse doesn’t always remove the smell. You also have to remove the leavings of said corpse when it was alive and pooping and peeing everywhere. In my case, I had to remove and replace peed-on insulation and clean out a lot (an unbelievable LOT) of rat shit before the smell left. Good luck.

Can you do a couple of full days or do you have to do all or nothing?

I think a few full days of Kindergarten would be fun for him and a break for you.

I vote all day K unless it is too much financially for you.

It will give you “quality” time with your other little stinker.

Just my 2 cents

Our all day K includes rest time, an extra story, and an extra work cycle.

Can you switch in or out of it in a month if he’s whining to stay and play with his friends, or if you decide you want him at home?

If it still smells like the dead rat, my guess is that it had babies that died shortly after their mother died and you need to look for the nest. If it smells slightly different, just do free association and I might be able to point you in some possible directions. ( Cheese, rotten egg, ammonia,chicken rotting in the sun) ???

2 things in our basement have smelled similar to your description:
First is there a drain nearby? The trap could be dry. When they dry out, they stink. Solution: pour some water down the drain.
Second, is there a breaker box in that room? We had a circuit breaker that wasn’t secured tightly and it was slowly burning until it finally burned out (thank god we didn’t have a house fire). This burning created the worst rotten flesh smell ever. Never once did we smell something “burning”. We never would have thought the problem was electrical.

Good luck on the K decision. In my area very few schools offer 1/2 day so it wasn’t a decision I had to make. However, I think those who stay on to finish the day just get more time to play with friends, have rest time and attend specials like gym, music, art…the fun stuff!

I did 1/2 day w/my first son and full day with my 2nd child (when I was working and needed her in school).

Both did (and are doing) just fine.

I don’t see a reason to do full day – if you are able to swing it.

(1) I can smell things when others can’t (mold, natural gas). However, I can’t smell cat pee. I just CAN’T. Most of the time I’m grateful, but sometimes I worry that if I smelled like cat pee, I would have no idea.

(2) I’m really enjoying the comments on this post. I get so paranoid when I smell bad & mysterious smells in the house, and this is giving me lots of information.

(3) I second the idea that moving the corpse may not always remove the smell. I know someone who had to clean up a floor a dead body had been on for a period of time, and there was a body-shaped mark made of, I don’t know, dead body ooze, I guess. I would think it could smell, although I did not get to ask questions to find out for sure.

(4) Similar to commenter Becky’s story, my son shoved a piece of paper napkin up his nose when he was a year old. We thought he had an infection because his breath reeked like death. Nope, just a decomposing napkin in his nostril.

(5) I really hope you will update us if you find out what the stink is.

One more thing: full day K is mandatory in my state, and the kids seem to come home really, really tired for the first half of the year, but by the second half are able to handle it with no problem.

best thing to get rid of smells is white vinegar…

I’m a long time reader and feel that I NEED to comment on the kindergarten debate!
I teach all-day Kindergarten and would recommend that’s the route that you go. Not sure of when Riley’s b-day is, but if he will be one of the older ones then he will be ready for much more. At our school we teach the same curriculum as the half-day teachers, but in all day we simply have more time. More time to work on journal writing, more time to spend practicing sight words and letters and math. More time for science and social studies.
Another bonus is that we have more time to do free choice, recess, lunch…the social skills that the kids learn during those times are priceless.
Good luck!

I would go with 1/2 day for kindergarten – they are so young and usually exhausted by afternoon – and they have 12 years of going full-time to school. Send him 1/2 day and cherish the year!!!!

As someone not capable of dealing with small children one-on-one for endless hours at a time (this makes me seem like a monster, and I’m not, I love my daughters more than life, but I’m just not that into small kids and I NEED time to myself) the answer is obvious – full day! Both my daughters started full time “schooling” when they were 2 (see? Sound like a monster – but it’s really common to start “school” at 2 in France). In reality, that meant 9-2.30 for my elder daughter, 9-5 for the younger (but she’d been in daycare before that). My reasoning was that I have no family in the vicinity (or anywhere, really), no contact with other families with kids, etc. My elder daughter in particular was craving peers, and the “school” provided her with that. The days might seem long, but the rhythm was really cool and relaxed, lots of rest time, free play time, very, very little “work”. The result was that my daughters made friends, became sociable, interacted with people other than me and their dad, and he and I enjoyed our time with the girls much, much more.
They did seem impossibly small to be starting school, but they both thrived, both loved it, both adapted really, really well. Doing a half-day (which is really only 2-3 hours) seems totally pointless to me – kids like continuity, patterns, and going to school only to come home again 2 hours later seems crazy to me.
Obviously, it depends on the kids and you know what will suit your kids best, but for mine, school stimulated them (not academically, not at 2 anyway, though they did both learn to read earlier than average for France) and gave them something I couldn’t and I have no regrets.
They’re now in 4th and 1st grade (I think – I’m not sure of US grades; they’re 9 and nearly 7), both love school, get good grades, have no trouble making friends and are at ease in company.
Hope this helps a little!

My in-laws had a similar problem and tried everything under the sun to get the smell out. They finally stumbled on soaking cotton balls in vanilla extract and placing them (in a small dish) in the offending closet and voila! Smell gone, never to return. My mom did this with some particularly smelly (yet brand new) boots, and it worked as well.

A mouse died in the ductwork above my office a few months ago. I smelled it for weeks, and I know that coated-tongue feeling you speak of. I could smell it in my hair, my scarf…blehhhhh.

After the initial full-on corpse-tacular super strength bio-whiff wore off, most of my co-workers claimed they couldn’t smell it. Someone put one of those Airwick jelly cones in my office and the result is that now, Airwick jelly cones smell of death to me.

It will take a while but the smell will wear off. There are products you can buy to absorb odors (not sure how they fare around kids and pets), perhaps you could try one of those.

I do not recommend the Airwick jelly cone in Fetid, however.

lunesta- the sleeping pill- did the same thing to me. everything smelled and tasted like shit. i stopped taking it- problem solved. could it be a vitamin or supplement you’ve recently started taking?

Here in Canada (or at least in Ontario) our 4 year olds go every other day – junior kindergarten and our 5 year olds do the same thing – senior kindergarten. They go from 9-3:15. Its pretty exhausting for them. I don’t love that she doesn’t go every day though as the up and down with days off is hard on her. Now they are implementing all day everyday…hard for a 4 year old but my 5 year old definitely ready. I’m a WAHM so I value the free daycare side of it. I also value the one on one time with my 3 year old who will be off to school in September !

As I write this the girls are putting on their uniforms to go to school. They are in kindergarten, there is no charge and it is mandatory in this state. The bus will pick them up at 7:30a.m and drop them off at 3:30 p.m. Then they actually have real freaking homework, spelling words, numbers etc. They don’t get a nap time etc. Seems cruel, because to me they are not quite babies but they aren’t really big kids yet. I miss them a lot … IF I had a choice, it would be half a day.

My parents have a stink in their back hall. There is a full closet there, the door to the garage and the back door. It smells like freshly rotting mice, but there are no mice to be found. My Dad has opened up walls, opened up the air vent, everything has been removed from the closet and the source of the stink can’t be found. This has been going on literally for 3 years, and the smell randomly comes and goes, and it is never there constantly. It drives my Mom nuts, but what can she do? Good luck with your funk.

Ok – I forgot to mention, she has tried to spray different air fresheners, odor neutralizers etc. to just have it smell like the old joke goes “It smells like a bear shit in the woods.” I feel for you, because she and I can smell it and my Dad can slightly, but not as bad. I’m not suggesting that it is a pet odor, but maybe some kind of odor neutralizing cleanser like nature’s miracle would help with the smell? Or painting the furnace cabinet with Kilz to seal in the funk?

A rat died under the floorboards of our apartment last year and THERE IS NO WORSE SMELL IN THE UNIVERSE. There might be more than one down there (there was in our case). We had a dude come and the corpse was so far up into the foundation or whatever that he couldn’t get the corpse out, so instead he put some kind of odor-sucker-upper bags of stuff around near where the #$*&er died. It still took more than 2 weeks for the smell to dispel fully, and even then on hot days–ughghghghgh. You have my complete sympathy.

Full day kindergarten is too much for them when they are still so young. I’ve helped out in kindergarten when it was full day/alternate day and they were so tired and cranky. Plus these years will fly by, when he’s 18 and off to University you’ll be happy you had this time with him.

Hahahahahha, Satan’s Taint. Hahahahahha.

My 4 year old son has CRAZY smelling skills…

He, his little brother, and a little cousin all got sleeping bags as a gift for Christmas. They all rolled around in the floor in them for awhile and someone jokingly asked how we were going to be able to tell the identical sleeping bags apart, and my bloodhound son sniffed each one and gave the appropriate ones to his brother and cousin. Just smells like them, he says.

Needless to say, I get a little self-conscious if I’ve maybe I’ve put a shower off a little too long. ;)

AND that same son starts kindergarden this year and I don’t think we have a choice…I think all public kindergarden here in Lexington, Kentucky are full day. Eeek…still grappling with this and considering “red shirting” him.

I’m with you (and 95 of your other commenters) on the frighteningly sensitive nose. I have smelled an off odor coming from my fridge for MONTHS. I cleaned the whole thing not that long ago (um, September? I think?)(which yes, is nearly 4 months ago, but that was the first really good cleaning in a lot longer than that, so I’m going to stick with my assessment of fridge = CLEAN) and it was making me crazy that every time I opened the fridge I would get this whiff of something fetid and gross. My husband couldn’t smell it. My kids couldn’t smell it. We looked everywhere for a missed spill, mouldering drip pan, forgotten food turned science project – NOTHING.

And then the smell went away.

I am left with a mystery as to what the hell crawled up my fridge and died and I can only hope that it never ever ever comes back.

As for Kindergarten, my daughter is a little older than Riley (born August 05) and she goes to full day Kindergarten. She seems to love it, but was complaining at first about it being too long. She definitely is tired and ready for the day to be over when she gets home, which can put a crimp on playdates and other fun stuff (not that we would DO those things, because I, too, work from home and there’s only so much facilitating of playdates one can do while continuing to be productive at work). I think it winds up being down to your gut. Do you think he would benefit? Are he and Dylan at each others throats and would benefit from the alone time? Can you swing it monetarily?

I would be the perfect person to come sniff out various situations. Where do I apply? My Aunt, who calls me “The Nose,” often calls me over to smell things, because I am extremely “olfactory.” A smell as you described would disturb me to no end. I feel for you. Wish I wasn’t so far away and could pop by.

Let us know what happens with the smell, OK?

Have you googled Olfactory Hallucinations?

Totally common in people with mild brain damage, frontal seizures, tumors or even psychiatric difficulties. I only know this because I too think I smell things but for me it is a recurring smoke smell – chances are I suffered mild brain damage in an accident 12 years ago which is approximately when the smell started.

I walked in the door last night and smelled a bad smell… don’t know what it is and I took care of all the things that could possibly cause the problem the day before with the exception of the dog, he has a different stink. My boyfriend is of course completely oblivious!

Saw this article, I may look through some solutions tonight: http://www.houselogic.com/articles/what-stinks-houselogics-guide-eradicating-winter-house-smells/

Soo…. Just thought I would share my thoughtfs when my daughter started full day kindergarten this fall…I was sad…I thought I would love the extra “free” time ( not really – I have a three year old at home)…but I was sad…. She’s going to spend the next 12+ years in school full time….it just hit home for me that her time as my “baby” was ending and I look back and wish I hadn’t looked forward to that moment so much and instead focused more on enjoying our free time together….if half day was an option I would go back and choose thawith unfortunately the private school we chose doesn’t have that option…and public school in our area was not a choice we were comfortable with…Since you are working from home….you have
Dylan anyway….so it’s not really “free” time anyway…I would say consider keeping him half day and keep up all the wonderful things you’ve already been doing….you’ll both have many wonderful memories of these days toghether

Ignore my typos….damn iPad would let me scroll up in text box to fix!!!

My oldest 3 all did half day kindergarten. At the time it was all that was offered in our area. Then #4 came along, much later than the rest, and we had a choice to do half or all day kindergarten.

A little back ground, #4 has a very late summer b-day and he had some fine motor skill issues so we decided to hold him back and did not send him to kindergarten when he was 5. When it was time to sign him up I did so much hand wringing that they almost fell off. What to do! The stress, the worry.

In the end we decided that it would be beneficial for him to have as much practice as possible with writing and decided to send him to all day kindergarten (even though I could have bought a CAR with the amount of money we spent on it.)

It was the smartest, best decision we ever made!! He loved it, and even though the school says that they work on the same material as the 1/2 days, what they don’t tell you is that they get twice the amount of time practicing it, learning to read, figuring out how to be a big kid, learing math, etc… #4 is in first grade this year and we can see a huge difference with the kids that attended all day versus 1/2 day. They are further ahead in reading and math skills.

I would recommend it, but I know the cost can be very prohibitive. My older 3 all did 1/2 day and turn out just fine also, by the way. Do what is best for Riley and your family.