Tag Archives: residence hall

Sometimes My Apartment Smells Like Poop

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For a year and a half, I have wracked my brain wondering why my apartment randomly smells like poop sometimes.  It would be easy now to blame it on C, but he’s only been around for nearly nine months. ;)

Every time it happens, I walk around my apartment sniffing everything like a bloodhound.  The garbage can, the diaper genie, the bathroom, the sink, the refrigerator.  I probably look pretty crazy.  But how the heck does the smell of poo infiltrate our humble abode?  It’s an unsettling problem to have.

I think I finally solved the poop mystery.  We live just down the hall from our residence hall’s public restrooms and, even though a hallway door separates us, I think we get the privilege of smelling any ginormous deuce that people decide to take.  So here I sit soaking in the smell of someone else’s waste.  Yum.

Fire Alarms Galore!

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There are numerous benefits to living on-campus for Hubster’s position as a Hall Director, but there are moments (or nights) when those seem to be outweighed by the negative experiences. Tonight was one of those nights.

Less than two hours after C went to bed, the fire alarm went off. Now, this is not just your typical fire detector. Imagine an air horn siren and flashing strobe lights with a male voice saying, “ATTENTION, ATTENTION. PLEASE MOVE TO YOUR NEAREST EXIT. ATTENTION, ATTENTION.” It is truly terrifying to wake up to that. My poor son woke up to that noise FOUR times tonight. FOUR!

For the first alarm, we spent maybe 15 minutes outside. Less than 30 minutes after we came back inside…just when I got C to fall back asleep…it went off again. We spent significantly more time outside for that one. When we came back in, the strobe lights continued to flash for about 45 minutes. In the amount of time it took me to breathe a sigh of relief when the lights went off, the alarm sounded for a third time. Off we went…this time, we didn’t need to exit the building because it went off during repair. Go back to the apartment…get C to fall asleep…prepare myself for bed…and guess what? Yes, the alarm goes off AGAIN.

This time, C and I waited out at the front desk until the electrician and security left the building. Hopefully that means the rest of our night will be quiet.

As for Hubster, he’s lucky enough to be on duty tonight (sarcasm intended). He’s pretty much having the worst duty night he’s had since last spring, so he’ll probably end up pulling an all-nighter. Poor guy.

Here’s to hoping the rest of our night is alarm-free!

Raising a Child in a Residence Hall

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I’ve mentioned in the past that Hubster has a live-in graduate assistantship.  He is a residence hall director and we live in the hall director apartment in a residence hall.  There are distinct pros and cons to raising a child in a residence hall.  It’s an environment that emphasizes the value of education and diversity.  I’m really excited that my son will be growing up understanding how valuable and exciting higher education is.  We will have the opportunity to expose him to a diverse group of people, backgrounds and beliefs.  There are many students that may not have experienced these things until entering college, but our son will be opened to them from the beginning.

Then there are the downfalls of raising a child in this type of environment.  Things such as a surprise fire alarm screeching in the middle of the night and rushing into the cold night air.  I can’t WAIT for that, which will inevitably happen this winter.  (That reminds me, I should have things prepared to grab when we’re running out the door…)  There’s moments like tonight, when C is in the middle of a night feeding and is startled by a young man shouting the F-word in the hall.  Right now, he’s young enough not to know what it means, but I dread the day that he starts repeating everything he hears.

I suppose that, as with everything else in life, you take the good with the bad.  Hopefully C will somehow manage not to develop an extensive, cringe-worthy vocabulary and instead become a boy who is eager to learn and is open and accepting of all people.