Laundry, continued...

After my last post I thought I should give you the basics on laundry. You know, the do's and don't of laundry.  Here goes:

Do sort by color, texture, fabric, and sometimes, just how dirty something really is.  There are items that are so dirty, they need their own special, private time in the washing machine.

Do look for stains and or stickers on clothing before putting them through the wash.  Some stains just don't come out.  Stickers, after being washed, never come off.  Ever.

Turn those jeans inside out.  And while you are turning them inside out, go through the pockets. Always go through the pockets.  You might get lucky and find money.  Mostly you will find gum, crayons, paperclips, acorns, rubber bands, pencils, small rubber balls, pencil erasers, gum wrappers, legos, Nintendo DS games, Darth Vader's missing head, and teeth. 

Just a FYI here- legos, acorns, pencil erasers, and Nintendo DS games wash and dry well.  The Nintendo Game was a surprise really.  Gum, crayons, and pencils do not wash well and make a huge mess in your dryer. 

Try and remember to promptly move  your wash to the dryer.  If you forget to transfer the load for more than 12-24 hours, you need to rewash it. And don't worry, it happens to all of us.  I've been rewashing the same load for the last three days.

Once the item is in the dryer, it is clean, and your job is pretty much over. 

Do have a glass of wine and relax.  Don't spill the wine on your new shirt so that you have to start the process over.

If I ever have a complete breakdown, it will be because of laundry

That was a facebook status a while ago, but it's pretty true.  Laundry will be the cause of my breakdown.

 My brother-in-law asked me today why I haven't posted another entry to my blog.  My response, "I'm a busy mom.  I'm doing laundry."

That was my reason.  Laundry.

It's never done.

Ever.

Which I guess is fine.  It means I'm needed.

Nobody else around here does laundry.  They could do laundry.  I have shown everyone how to sort clothes by color and put it in the washing machine, add the detergent and select the correct wash cycle. They also know how to move the clothes from the washing machine to the dryer.  I have even taught them how to turn the dryer on.  But nobody seems interested.

They are, however, interested in clean clothes.  The are not, interested in putting their clean clothes away. This becomes an issue for me when I find clean and folded clothing in their dirty clothes hamper.  So, I started charging them .25 for each item of clean clothing they put back in the laundry. Some weeks I make a lot money.

I am a busy mom, and I do a lot of laundry.  Only the dirty stuff though, and at least I'm getting paid. 

PDD-NOS

I'll get right to the basics of us, we live with PDD-NOS; Pervasive Development Disorder, Not Otherwise Specified. 

It's a label doctors give children when they know something isn't quite right, but they can't really figure it out, and, frankly they are tired of dealing with the parents.  It identifies the child as being on the autism spectrum. 

Here's the other great thing, if your child has been labeled with an acronym, they usually have at least one more.  We also have ADHD, RAD, and ODD.  That means my kid has a lot of issues.  That also means life is never boring and it gives me a ton to write about.

Spiderman

My kids all dance.  All three of them, that's an entire blog post in itself.

Tomorrow are Nutcracker auditions.  Every year their dance studio does a fabulous production of the Nutcracker and tomorrow they all tryout.  Really, they show up and get a part. 

I have to fill out a form for each child.  The basics, how long have you danced, have you danced the Nutcracker before, what part have you danced.  This year my favorite question ever...What is your dream role in the Nutcracker? 

My oldest doesn't care, and my second wants to be Fritz, but my third (he has issues, we'll get to those later), my third says, "Spiderman". 

I say, "Spiderman?  I don't think Spiderman is in the Nutcracker."
He replies, "well, he should be."
So I fill in the blank: dream role, Spiderman. 
I'm fairly certain he'll get the part.

Really, I'm not!

Because I don't need to make any of it up. This is my life, our life, and we like it. Most of the time.

Except mornings.

And sometimes, nights.

Usually, the hours between 8AM-3PM are pretty good.