Could have been worse

The arsenal

It was really, really good that Noah was already asleep when I opened the dryer last night. By the time I confronted him this morning, I had sufficiently "cooled down" and had also accepted that this whole episode was really my fault... no, that's not the sign of some "my child can do no wrong" crazy lady; just the honest truth that right when I was putting that load of khakis & grays into the washing machine yesterday, a little thought entered my head "You really should check the pockets of Noah's pants" which was weird because I normally check pockets when I'm sorting, not loading, but I IGNORED IT. Seemed logical enough, since the usual pocket collection of candy wrappers, airsoft pellets, rocks, and pennies has yet to ruin any of our clothes. You'd think I'd have learned to listen to those little promptings by now. In any case, Noah and I did have a firm conversation about not leaving crayons in pockets from now on, but I wasn't too hard on him.

Have I told you lately how much I love the internet? I found a highly-praised recipe using the ingredients pictured above, along with a long hot-water cycle and lots of extra soaking time, and after procuring said ingredients at my local grocer (I also love stores that stay open late and/or never close) I went to work on this project... at 10:30pm. I could NOT leave this until the morning, since the kids and I had big ZOO plans today (it's fall break you know). So, I washed and soaked, keeping myself entertained by The Sting on AMC (featuring the late, great, Paul Newman) and when I noticed after one wash cycle the GREEN WAS STILL THERE, I filled the washer again with hot water, TWICE the prescribed quantity of the ingredients above, and went to bed at 1:15am while I let it soak overnight.

In the morning I let the completed the cycle and... THE GREEN WAS STILL THERE. The other colors had nearly disappeared (even red!), leading me to believe that the concoction did in fact work on CRAYON, as it was supposed to, but this green substance may as well have been Sharpie marker for how vibrant it still was. Upon further investigation, Noah told me that the green just may have been an oil pastel he took home from art, and not a regular crayon.

This afternoon I tried WD40 and Carbonara and lots of scrubbing and experimentation which barely affected the brightness of the green, and, exhausted from my abbreviated night's sleep and a long day at the zoo, I gave up by 4:30pm and allowed the green oil pastel to claim victory.

Fortunately, only 3 good pieces of clothing are really ruined and unwearable; some khaki capris of mine (which really did fit me so nicely; oh well), my favorite khaki shorts of Molly's, and some shorts of Lucy's. And since it was a "khakis & grays" load, most of it is very casual attire anyway and occasional small smudge of green on heather gray t-shirts doesn't affect their wearability too much.

And now, having ignored a clear warning and lost a great pair of pants over it, I am left to wonder about every little thought that pops into my head: "Should I have changed lanes then?" "Is there a reason I feel like we should check the Gilbert & Guad Blockbuster for the Wizard of Oz instead of the Warner & Cooper Blockbuster?" "If I had warned Molly ahead of time to stop running would she have not tripped and fallen just then? But does it really matter since she didn't get hurt anyway?"

It can be such a balancing act, can't it?