Things the washing machine doesn't like

I hate to do laundry. I hate it because I forget to check the pockets, because it takes a lot of time, and because I have to put it away afterwards (which I never do).

I make Mark sort his own clothes, but sometimes when we're running late, I just do it myself. Boy, did I find a surprise when I dumped his hamper on the ground yesterday.

Besides dirty clothes, all of these objects tumbled out as well:



I was surprised to see all of that stuff--I'm guessing Mark's bed is too crammed underneath to shove in any more crap. So I guess the hamper is his new go-to storage area when I yell at him to pick up his floor.

I wasn't surprised to see the hats (two of them!) or the belt. I was kinda surprised to see the shoe, but only because there was just one, not both. What really surprised me was this:




Yup, that's right, a peanut. Or rather, half a peanut. I have no idea why there was half a peanut rolling around in the hamper, except that maybe it fell out of Mark's pocket. Which also concerns me, because I'm trying my best to raise a man, and not a squirrel.

I suppose this was a nice, gentle reminder to keep checking not only Mark's pockets, but his hamper as well. Because apparently, crayons are not the worst thing I might put in the washer!

A helpful skill

In addition to raising four kids, my parents both worked full-time while I was growing up. As you can imagine, they rarely had a moment to relax.

Because I was young, and kids think only of themselves, I never realized how much work that entailed. (Even as an adult I never realized it, until I got my own kid.) But my parents came up with some pretty creative ways to share the housework.

For example, my mom just ruined stuff. She washed all our clothes in hot water and then dried them at the highest heat. We panicked when we saw Mom gathering up clothes, because we knew in about an hour none of those clothes would fit. So we showed her -- we started doing our own laundry, so she wouldn't ruin our favorites clothes anymore.

She also ruined our lunches. Anyone who knows my mom also knows her penchant for freezing things -- ANYTHING. Leftovers, bread, full meals, potato chips (yes, seriously -- she freezes bags of potato chips!).

Well, one day she was watching T.V., and the show claimed you could save time by making and freezing sandwiches. I am sad to say my mom did exactly that. And the result was pretty much what you'd expect -- disgusting! After complaining for a week about the soggy, half-thawed pb&j's, Mom called us big ol' babies, and said if we didn't like it, we could just make our own lunches. Score another one for Mom -- in a few short weeks, she had us all making our own lunches and washing our own clothes.

(My Dad had a completely different take on saving time -- he simply locked us out of the house during the summer. If we couldn't get in, we couldn't mess it up, and voila, he saved time by not cleaning it!)

And so it was with pride that I walked into the garage the other day to discover Mark washing his clothes. He'd sorted them, and was washing the darks. When I opened the door, he was spraying Oxi-Clean on his shirt and I couldn't help smiling with pride. It's been a long time since I've seen a little kid doing laundry, and it brought back a lot of memories.

Perhaps I'd been too hard on my parents, I realized. Perhaps they weren't slackers foisting off their work, but were really just ahead of their time.

I'm sure my son will try to guilt-trip me when he's older about all the chores he had to do as a kid (just like we do to my parents). But I will smile and laugh, much as my parents do now, and convince him it wasn't punishment, it was character building, and really, he should be thanking me.

Now if I can just convince him to do the cooking, I'll be set for life...

Laundry 101

Apparently, I set the clothes dryer to rainbow cycle yesterday, because when I opened it, the clothes were decorated in bright splashes of color. I discovered the bits were smeared, melted crayon baked into the clothes.

Mark watched me unload the clothes, mostly his. His favorite shorts looked like they'd lost a fight with a painter, and he panicked. "It's not that bad," he said desperately. "I can still wear them."

"Not in public," I said. He begged and pleaded, until finally I said, "Hey, we've got bigger problems here--look at the dryer!"

The dryer had splotches of yellow and orange staining the door, and a bluish-green tint around the drum. There were lumps of red and purple on the tumbler-things (I don't know the technical terms for dryer parts). It was a mess.

So I did what any self-respecting mother would do--I raced to the Internet for help. (I figured the clothes were a loss, but man, a new dryer would cost me!!)

I Googled "crayons in dryer." There are a LOT of results for that! I felt a little better--I'm not the only mom to wash her kid's crayons with his clothes. I found some good information, which ultimately saved most of Mark's clothes, and some BAD information, which I wouldn't even try.

The good info: The crayon does come off. Drench your clothes in OxiClean--I used a bottle of the laundry spray, and another bottle of a thick, laundry soap-like OxiClean stain remover, and soaked the clothes in it. Then I washed them again in cold water, and all the crayon came out.

The bad info: You wouldn't believe how many Web sites recommend spraying WD40 or Goo-Gone into the dryer to clean it! I don't know much about those products, except that they are extremely flammable, and the whole point of the dryer is to...well, heat things up! Seemed like a bad combination to me.

Another suggestion said to take a whole tube of toothpaste and squirt it into the dryer, then pop open a beer. By the time you finish your beer, the dryer will be clean, and you can clean out the toothpaste.

I'm sure that idea works just fine, and toothpaste is not flammable, but...YUCK. I passed on that one as well.

In the end, I took a box of baking soda, a little water, and a lot of elbow grease. I scrubbed off the most colorful bits, and the bits I couldn't get off...well, they've just added a little character to my otherwise dull dryer. I washed and dried two loads of old towels, and when they finished crayon-free, I declared the dryer clean enough, and open for business once again.

I held up Mark's shorts, good as new, and asked him, "Who's the best mom in the entire world?" He smelled a trick question, and answered, slowly, "You...and Grandma."

"What? Grandma didn't save your favorite shorts today! I said, who is the best mom in the entire world WHO JUST SAVED YOUR FAVORITE SHORTS?" I dangled them over the trash can, and suddenly, he found the correct answer.

"You are!" he shouted.

Which, coincidentally, was the same answer to his next question. "Mom, are you gonna check my pockets more carefully next time, before you wash my clothes?"

"No," I told him, smiling. "YOU ARE!"