Laundry here vs. there

Today I did not one, not two, not three, but four loads of laundry—I washed them, dried them, folded them, and put them away all by myself…with a little help from my amazing husband…and an awesome Auntie Sarah who let two rambunctious children wrestle with her…and some wonderful grandparents who also helped entertained those rambunctious children.

I like these newfangled machines. High capacity washing machine. Tumble dryer. Dishwasher. Toaster. An oven that I don’t have to kneel down and lean inside to light, risking my life and all my arm hair in the process.

It makes me feel incredibly lazy and yet highly productive at the same time…if that’s even possible…and I like to imagine that it is.

But how did we accumulate so many dirty clothes in one week?

First, we left for Grover on a Sunday afternoon after church (because we go to church on Sundays now, which is still kind of weird for us) and since Friday seems to be my new laundry day that meant we already had dirty clothes from half of Friday, as well as Saturday and Sunday. And then because we went to Grover and took clothes and blankets and jackets and so forth with us those all got dirty with that red powdery sand that that area of the world is famous for. So I was already facing Mount Washmore the minute we were in the door from Grover.

Last night, however, was the kicker.

Rachel got up at 2:30 in the morning. She had to go potty. She needed a drink. She wanted breakfast. The list went on and on.

She had been feverish all day and was still feeling fairly hot so I complied with all her desires, except for breakfast, gave her some Tylenol and put her back to bed.

Just before 4:00 in the morning Rachel ran into our room again.

“I need you, Mommy!” she cried.

“Come hop in bed with us,” I stupidly soothed her.

I helped her into our bed and cradled her in my arms.

And then she threw up.

All over me.

*sigh*

I woke up Andrew and we all three rushed about. Rachel and I jumped in the shower while Andrew changed the sheets of the bed.

Rachel said she was feeling much better but just didn’t want to sleep alone. I just wanted her to go to sleep so that I could go to sleep so she got into bed with us again and…oh, yes…she threw up again.

This time I managed to catch most of it in her nightgown.

She got back into bed with us again and again had to throw up, but this time I was fast enough to rush her to the toilet.

It was a long night.

When I woke up in the morning and looked around our room I almost started laughing. Andrew was already gone for the day an somehow both girls were in bed with me and I have no recollection of how that happened. A pile of vomit-filled sheets were in one corner of our room, a pile of vomit-filled pyjamas were on the bathroom floor, a vomit-splashed pillow was on the floor on my side of the bed, a hastily discarded nightgown was not too far away from that, and everywhere were articles from our Grover trip. All this on top of our Egypt hud.

But things are much better now. And as bad as things were, I can’t help but wonder how long it would have taken for me to catch up on that much laundry in Egypt with our tiny washing machine that completes a cycle in four hours and for which there is no accompanying tumble dryer.