I'm Not An Alcoholic

I have a trio of fun giveaways going on right now:

Family calendar giveaway from BusyBodyBook right here.

JumpStart Get Moving Family Fitness game for the Wii right here.

Spinbrush MyWay! (for girls) battery operated toothbrush right here.

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I may have just drunk a good portion of a bottle of wine by myself, but I am not an alcoholic. Let me explain how I got to this situation in the first place.

1) I am on day three of being a single parent, and I forget how hard it is when you don't have any support at home. Sure, it's nice that when I put things a certain way they stay that way, but when I need a break, I no longer have one. No, my husband didn't leave me - he's in Vegas with a friend for five days. Yes, I'm that nice a wife.

2) I agreed to watch a friend's two children for five hours a day three Sundays in a row. While her kids are fine and mine like them, having four kids in the house while trying to avoid crying and other drama can be somewhat traumatic. Today was our third week of the three...

3) ... so I decided to take all four children by myself (see #1) to the Kohl's Children's Museum today. On their 25th anniversary celebration. A free day. To say it was crowded was a bit of an understatement. I will admit that the day went far better than I thought it would as I started out, but my grasp on sanity has obviously left me - proof being the idea in the first place.

4) I have certain rules in my car - like no throwing of any objects by anyone - that I tend to be fairly strict about. I pulled my car to the side of the road to reiterate that one on the way home after four overtired children couldn't quite manage to listen to reason while the car was moving. Once I mentioned that things like throwing items in my car (and punching each other) were the kinds of behaviors that I would need to tell my friend when she asked how her children behaved and explained to my wee one that they would be cleaning out the car entirely and all books were being removed from it once we got home, all was fine.

5) Once I got home, I was proactive and did a load of laundry. After glancing inside, I saw that Little Miss's pj bottoms from the night before were in there, so I decided to do darks. (Quick backstory - with our overnight p0tty training issues and my husband out of town, I decided to put Little Miss in Pull-Ups outside her pjs. She'd still have to stay dry, but hopefully the sheets wouldn't need to be washed twice a night. Friday night she was dry all night. Last night, not so much.) What with it being summer and my husband being out of town, we had slightly fewer darks than normal, so I took a look through my closet to see if I could toss anything extra in. Bad idea mixing Mommy's nice clothes with the wee ones' wear.

6) Once the wee ones were in bed, the washer finished at exactly the right time. As I started pulling clothes out, I noticed that there were little white things in my load of darks. Ugh, I thought, Little Miss put one of her dirty Kleenexes in her pocket and forgot to take it off. (She'd had a little runny nose for a couple days.) As I continued to pull items from the washer, I realized that no... this was in fact a Pull-Up explosion. Although I'd asked her this morning when I saw her in different bottoms what she'd done with the bottoms and Pull-Up (and ensured that she put the bottoms in the washer instead of her dirty hamper), she had "accidentally" put the Pull-Up in the washer, and I hadn't seen it when I'd peeked inside.

7) I took the entire load downstairs and outside and proceeded to spend the next thirty-five minutes shaking out each individual piece of clothing to get as much of the nasty Pull-Up goop off the clothes as possible. Interestingly, stretchy fake type materials, silky things, and velveteen don't hold onto the goobers nearly as well as regular cotton items.

8) After that thirty-five minute period, I looked like a snowman with bad dandruff. Although I had remembered to close my mouth and nose and turn my head while shaking, I was covered in the Pull-Up goobers. On the plus side, having gone through an hour long wash cycle, at least they weren't quite so urine-soaked as they had been previously. And yes, I've since taken a shower.

9) I then spent the next twenty minutes cleaning the Pull-Up goop from the washing machine itself. You'd think a Pull-Up explosion would essentially disintegrate, but no, it adheres to any and all surfaces of the washing machine, in addition to the clothing. It was not easy to get the stuck on goop off the metal in the washing machine. Every time I thought I had it all, I found more. In the end, I practically needed to crawl inside my slightly urine-smelling washing machine (whee!) to get it all removed.

10) After putting the shaken clothes back into the washing machine for a double rinse cycle (in hot water with vinegar), I still found some of the little white goobers attached to the clothes - not nearly as many, but some. Oddly enough, I almost didn't care after having drunk my little bit of wine.

On the plus side, the wee ones were so exhausted from the activities of the day that they fell straight asleep once they tumbled into bed.