Defcon 5

The girls have been at camp since Sunday.  I am swimming in a sea of testosterone, surrounded by my boys, my husband, and even carrying a son.  It is interesting around here.  I grew up with no sisters and four brothers, so I should be used to this, but it is not something that females are supposed to get used to, I think.  It is why we tend to travel in packs, for our own protection.

Usually when I have something to gt done my girls bustle around, seeming to instinctively know what I mean when I say something stupid like put your laundry in the trash.  They assume that I mean toss the dryer sheet and put away your clothes, and they do.  My sons, however, follow my directions exactly.  So I find myself repeating what I thought I already said.  A whole bunch. 

If we are doing laundry my girls know that switch the laundry is a multi-step process that involves opening the dryer, removing laundry and placing it into a basket, opening the washer, moving clothing from the washer to the dryer, tossing in a dryer sheet, closing the dryer door and hitting the start button.  They then at times go a step further and add more dirty laundry to the washer, with laundry detergent, and turn it on.  After this, they carry up the clean.  Now, the girls are older, but have been doing this for years.  The boys idea of switching laundry involves moving piles of clothing around so it looks like less dirty laundry, riding dirty laundry down the steps, and playing in the formally full baskets.

Today, I declared laundry day. We have a mountain of dirty towels, as always, plus tons of blankets, sleeping bags, and quilts from camp.  Not that in these hot days and nights we will be needing them, but I would like them cleaned and put away to make room for the landfill that is going to arrive when the girls get home from a week at camp. 

I have already done several loads today, and reached the point of washing the sleeping bags.  This is where it gets interesting.  We do not allow the boys to use any heavy machinery, power tools, or even anything more dangerous than a butter knife without supervision.  I do not have them run the washer or dryer, mostly not because they do not know how, but because I can not be sure what they put in, laundry, toys, plastics, crayons, the cat, each other... 

As I was, umm, indisposed, the washer began the spin cycle.  With a heavy sleeping bag inside.  It was off balance.  David started screaming.  Isaac declared that we reached Def con 5 because the whole house was going to shake apart.  He was running around making siren noises and trying to evacuate the house.  From the bathroom I am yelling at them to calm down, which never helps, I know, but it was all I could do at the time. They ran to the washing machine.  I ran out of the bathroom as only an 8 month pregnant woman with a broken toe and sprained ankle can.  (That is a different story altogether, and not as exciting.)  They were already running back up the steps after "fixing" the problem.  They opened the washer, saw that the clothes were still in water, thankfully, because they normally would not have stopped to notice such a small detail, so they figured that the load was not done.  They added much more laundry detergent, and restarted the cycle.  Which is better than flopping the already heavy, now dripping wet sleeping bag on the floor.

So in about 40 minutes, I am sure that we will reach Def con 5.  Again.  This time I plan on intercepting before the sleeping bag disintegrates from an overload of laundry detergent and too much time in the washer.  I may have to go sit in front of the washer in about 35 minutes to head them off.  Or we will have  pre-lunch ice cream to distract them.  I vote ice cream.  And then, maybe a nap.