Crayons and laundry....just when you think you have things under control....

About 3 or 4 years ago, the day my brother and sister-in-law-to-be were arriving to spend Christmas with us, what should happen? I opened the clothes dryer and found that everything was dotted blue. As I pulled each item of clothing out, my disbelieving eyes focused on the blue spots - they were on EVERYTHING. I had been washing all of our clothes together - the children's and CKB and my clothing. No more, I said!

Fast forward a few years...once more all the clothes are being washed together - with 6 people, I barely have enough time sometimes just to sort all the different colors and types, much less separate out our clothes from the children's clothes. I thought I'd checked all the pockets, really, I had, but the sight I saw when I opened the dryer last night was not what I was hoping for. Instead of the slight elation I was feeling at managing to get 2 loads done after dinner and getting somewhat caught up FINALLY after two busy weekends and a busy week in between, I found them again...SPOTS. And this time, it was worse. Last time it was a blue crayon with dark clothes mostly and somehow, mercifully, it wasn't on CKB's work clothes that'd been in there.
This time, it's a much sadder tale I have to tell. Sigh.

I opened the door and first pulled out a "Da" - the "baby" word around here for a cloth diaper. It had some sort of oily..greasy looking spots on it. Hmm, I thought, is the dryer broken and spewing grease on all the clothes somehow???? Yikes! I pulled out another item of clothing....spots everywhere, the horror continued with each...individual...item I pulled out and then, I found it. A crayon wrapper. Or, part of one. NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I wanted to scream, but the children were already in bed. I wanted to cry, but what good would that do. I wanted to turn back the clock and FIND the crayon as I was putting the wash in, but that wasn't possible. I sat on the laundry room floor slowly pulling out each item and teetered between happiness when it was "just a pair of underwear" and sadness when I found the two dresses I'd made for the girls a few months ago...ruined. Any dress would've caused me to be upset, but the ones I made with my own hands....sigh. It didn't get much better as I found two pairs of Mr. A's church pants, the girls' bloomers I'd made and an assortment of other things.

I piled them all into a laundry basket to think about what to try, what to do to maybe salvage something that was in there. Thankfully only one of CKB's work shirts was in the load and only has one spot on the back - I'm hopeful it'll come out. It's the other things that have spots EVERYWHERE that are probably pretty hopeless.

Yes, I've been to the Crayola site - remember, a few years ago?
Yes, I've read about trying WD40 - you don't know HOW many spots are on these clothes - but I'll probably try it on a few things and see what happens...or CKB will...I'm not supposed to use cleaners and so forth right now with heavy fumes. Sigh.

Amazingly, the dryer is still blue on the inside, not silver. Oh yes, silver. That was the culprit this time - I found the remains of the wrapper toward the end of the load of laundry as I pulled it all out one piece at a time. Good ol' silver.

Can I believe this has happened AGAIN? Yes. I can believe it, I just don't know how it happened this time. I thought I'd been so careful. Guess not. Should I ban all crayons from the house forever? Probably. Will I? No, I couldn't. The children derive so much joy from coloring and drawing that I couldn't take that away from them. And, if it wasn't a crayon, it'd be an oil pastel or a chunk of watercolor paint or a gluestick or, or, or.... Besides, I tell myself in a cheery little voice, maybe they'll think their duds look pretty cool. Maybe we'll buy some rit dye and just go for a retro, far out sort of look

Maybe.

Or, maybe I'll try the WD40 on the "important" stuff like the dresses and church pants and hope for the best while I search for that dress pattern, cut some new material and try to whip up 2 new dresses before I can't crawl around on the ground cutting it any more due to my ever-increasing girth!

Well, that's my saga. I didn't lose any sleep over it, thankfully since I need all the sleep I can get right now, but I was pretty upset about it last night and felt defeated by the laundry once again. I contemplated for a moment using a laundry service from now on, but I don't suppose I thought about it too seriously :)

Take care...and LOOK IN ALL THE POCKETS TWICE!