snow in October

I’ve told you all before that one of my least favorite household chores is laundry. It is truly the chore that never ends. Because even if you were to wash every piece of laundry in the house, you would only be “caught up” for about half a day – and then your whole family would want to take off their clothes and put pajamas on, leaving you with another pile of laundry. Those turds!

In my case, it is a little more fun to do laundry than it used to be. A few months ago, I was trying to dry a load of clothes and when I pressed “start” absolutely nothing happened. After investigating the situation, Bryan and I realized that our dryer had been overworked by a washer that wasn’t doing its job. Meaning we had a broken washer and dryer. At first I was really upset – if I don’t do laundry every day, we are buried under a mountain of it very quickly. Or worse, Bryan has to go to school wearing swim trunks and a coconut bra. So we didn’t waste any time getting to Sears to find a solution.

I like to shop, that’s no secret. Now, shopping for major appliances isn’t my favorite, but I had been salivating over my friend’s front-loading washer and dryer for months and I knew that was what I had to have. And a week later they were in my house, washing my clothes. The boys and I sat and watched the clothes and the little soap bubbles go around and around through the window for a long time. It was love. I probably would’ve slept in the laundry room those first nights if I could have. This was WAY better than a new crock pot!

So yesterday I was washing some clothes of the boys. Before any kids came, I put in a load while it was still dark, careful to not wake up the boys. I had stuffed the washer full to try and fit in everything. If you want to try this at home, fill your washer as full as you can. Then put in four more things. Then three more things.

As soon as the usual daycare chaos settled into a dull roar, I ran into the laundry room to change the clothes from the washer to the dryer. I pulled open the door and out spilled some laundry. But this laundry looked like it was covered in slushy snow. Wyatt picked up a chunk of the slush and ate it before I could even stop him. I knew what had happened – I had accidentally washed a diaper. Not the cloth kind, the disposable kind. And it didn’t take me long to guess who might have put a diaper in the laundry basket. I put my head down on the edge of the washer and tried to keep myself from crying. Not only was all my laundry covered in some mysterious polymer, but it had spilled out all over the floor, my son was trying to eat it, and five other kids were standing at the edge of the laundry room using tinker toys as drumsticks and “drumming” wildly on the door. The dull roar was over.

Thank the good Lord for dustbusters. And Tylenol. And cookies in the kitchen for everyone while Miss Laura cleans the laundry room.