Monday is laundry day at our house. Every week I avoid making plans to run errands or have play dates so that I can spend the day getting our "piles and piles" of laundry done. That and so that I can spend the day cleaning up the disaster area that is inevitably left over from Sunday. I don't know what it is about Sundays but somehow the dishes always end up piled high, the kid's bedrooms look like a bomb went off and our living room looks like a Toys 'R' Us threw up all over it. Come Monday morning I have at least 3 hours worth of tidying, washing, and cleaning staring me in the face the second I get up. Perhaps I should do a little less "resting" on the Sabbath. I have done the math a number of times and as it stands I do at least 7 loads of laundry a week, that's not including emergency loads that are bound to happen from time to time, in fact if there isn't an emergency laundry situation in a week it's a miracle. Anyways, 7 loads a week X 52 weeks a year equals 364 loads of laundry in a year. Luckily, laundry is one of my favorite chores. Why, the long winded explanation of my Monday routine? I have forgotten in the last few months that my original plan was to use this blog as a journal. I have completely neglected the day to day thoughts and goings on of my life and included only those of my children, which is great but I have scrapbooks and individual journals for that. The other day while telling an especially outrageous story about Walker to my sister in law Penny she said don't forget to record that in your journal, so here I am recording it in my journal. So, while this might be more boring for those of you reading this post, one day my children will appreciate the stories and thoughts that their mother recorded for them to read one day.
The other morning, it was a Monday so like today I was hunkered down in my room folding dozens of dozens of tiny shirts, pants and socks, with Walker and Lillian playing on the bed or reading books on the floor. Walker, on these days, is often running in and out of my room getting new toys or dragging Lillian back and forth in the hallway in a laundry basket. This morning was no different until I walked into the hallway and smelled a strong and awful burning smell. In my head I frantically ticked off the things that could be on fire, the iron, no I hadn't used that yet, the stove, nope, hadn't used that either, the dryer...THE DRYER, the only appliance in the house that was running at full force and had been for hours. So I raced downstairs to get into the basement when I was stopped by the thick black smoke swirling around in our kitchen, oozing out of the microwave with a time of 45 minutes still counting down on the timer. I rushed to the microwave and threw open the door only to find my rice bean bag smoking and burning and STINKING. The smell was putrid, I retched and gagged my way to the back door and threw it outside where Bridgett began barking wildly at the smoking, crackling, popping black bag in the snow (yes, she is brilliant.) Then, because Walker had come downstairs and was doubled over hacking and coughing in the kitchen, I locked he and Lillian in a bedroom and spent the next 20 minutes trying to help the smoke escape our home. When things had settled down and I was interrogating Walker about the cause of the bean bag being in the microwave he simply said "I think Lillian probably did it." I am still trying daily to get the fire pit smell out of our kitchen and we have since found the child lock function on the microwave, not that it matters much because this morning Emma went to pull something out of the microwave and pulled the glass tray out with it, shattering it into a trillion pieces. I think something's trying to tell us to get a new microwave.
Emma and Lillian are both sick with colds. Lillian gets particularly upset when she has a cold because when she tries to suck her thumb she can't breath making it impossible for her to go to sleep. The only solution is to hold her upright until she can suck her thumb long enough to fall asleep. Last night I was attempting this tactic and instead of trying to race to get her to sleep I sat with her in our rocker and sang one song after another to her, all of my favorite lullabies, most of which come from Disney soundtracks or the Children's Songbook. My heart was so full of adoration for this beautiful, tiny girl with her sweet smelling hair and little fingers holding tightly to my wrist that I couldn't bear to put her in her crib and let her drift off to sleep on her own. It occurred to me how close our children are to our Saviour, whom they left such a short time ago and I was overcome by the blessing and privilege it is to have these perfect spirits in our home. How grateful I am to be a mother and guardian over each of our precious children and to be able to be at home with them to experience each moment in their lives, even if some of them involve microwaves and smoke and "piles and piles" of laundry.
I couldn't help but include a couple of my favorite Disney lullabies.
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