Conserving Water

So, when we got this front-loading washer way back when in the old house, we found out that it used much less water per load than the old top-loader we had, even though it had a much larger capacity. This is a very good thing.

In part, of course, because it conserves water, leaving more water for the fishies in the ocean and for all of us to drink and blah blah blah.

In part because as our family grew, and the number of loads of laundry done in a month increased, those gallons saved each load added up to a difference in our water bill, I'm sure, though I've never done the math to figure out just how much more we'd be spending if we still had the top loader. (If i knew exactly how many loads of laundry I did in a month, I would either immediately feel exhausted at the thought, despair that even with that many trips up and down the stairs with laundry baskets I'm still in awful shape, lord it over anyone I know who thinks about laundry in a weekly instead of daily sense, or realize that I'm more justified than ever in getting one of the even larger washers currently on the market and would immediately spend our Christmas budget on one. At least the kids would be crying in clothes washed in fewer separate loads, right?)

But most of all, it's a good thing because when one tries to figure out why the laundry coming out of the washer feels just a bit more sodden than it usually does and eliminates the lint trap as the culprit by putting on a new one, and then checks the drainy-thingy by taking the front panel off and unscrewing the cap at the bottom of the washer to check the drain for baby socks and Legos and then replaces it but forgets to twist it one last time to *completely* seal it and then starts the washer because a set of queen size sheets is needed before the cleaning ladies come, then the number of gallons of water that drain onto the basement floor because of the not-quite-totally-screwed-on-cap-thing is not more than can be absorbed by a pile made up of two-plus loads of clothes generated yesterday just because all ten of us managed to walk around dressed plus nine beds' worth of sheets plus four week's worth of "Gee, I haven't looked under here since the last time the cleaning ladies came!" found laundry. (Yeah, they only come once a month now--that, plus cutting down on pizza plus cutting down on tuition by homeschooling two of the urchins is how we're swinging Liam's high school right now. Did you know that one can find over $200 a month just by not ordering pizza for ten every week? And that when you can no longer call for pizza at least once a week the copay for therapy still leaves a decent monthly savings, though when you order pizza just twice a month and forego therapy in lieu of just a few more maternal tantrums it pretty much comes out the same and you still get to indulge in garlic knots?) A few more gallons and even Mount Laundry might not have soaked it all up....

At least having all the laundry sopping wet now will motivate me to get it all washed as quickly as possible. Which I could do much more efficiently if I had an even larger washer and dryer....

Today's Quotes

I was putting Dunc on Lego.com for his ten minutes of privilege, and as the page was loading I told him, "OK, here we go."

Dunc gave me a big smile, stuck one foot up in the air behind him as only he can, and gave me a hammy, "THANK yoooouuu, my lady!"

Alex grumpily answered from where he was reading his assignment, "Duncan, you can't say that. She's not yours."

Duncan gave the effective "Yes, she is!" argument.

"No, she is NOT. She belongs to dad." I was busily "making the window big" for Dunc to buy more time to listen.

"What?" was Dunc's witty reply.

"She's with dad, like they're MARRIED, so she's with him. NOT you."

"Waaaaahh?"

"She's his, not yours, that's what I'm saying."

#

You know what else Alex has been saying? "I'm going to kick your butt." I know this not because he's said it to me, but because when I had Tim outside, eating his yogurt out in Nature while he swung in the toddler swing, and his foot bonked into me, he began to giggle and say, "I kick your BUSS! Mom, I KICK you BUSS!" and in the depths of my maternal subconscious audio files I was pretty sure it was Alex saying that in the background recently.

#

And Bot, who has discovered that Mom will pay pretty well for vacuuming and who is, unlike Liam and Cory, a kid who will proactively go after sources of extra income, agreed to vacuum the ground floor today. I made it clear that I wanted this done over the lunch hour(s), so while i was nursing K he came in lugging the vacuum and looked down. "Dang! The kitchen really DOES need to be vacuumed! Look at this floor" I love how having to clean something makes them suddenly un-blind to messiness....Though speaking of vacuuming, my effective get-them-to-pick-up ploy of telling Alex that if they don't pick up, the cleaning ladies (who only come once a month now, but they don't know that) or I will end up vacuuming up Lego pieces is causing Dunc trauma. One morning I told him I would need his help picking up so I could vacuum in the playroom, and he began to pick up while i started to vacuum the dining room and living room. Then I called him in to eat his oatmeal five minutes later when it was done cooking, but once I settled him with his oatmeal and turned the vacuum back on, I saw him go by the other side of the dining room table and head for the playroom.

Stop vacuum. "Dunc, go eat your breakfast before it gets cold."

"OK." Back toward the kitchen.

Start vacuum. Dunc comes by and goes back to the playroom.

Stop vacuum. "Dunc, is your oatmeal done?"

"No."

"Go eat it, then!"

"OK." Heads back to the kitchen. Start vacuum....

I won't tell you how many times I repeated this pattern before deciding to get to the bottom of this. Let's just say that it was more Dunc's increasing distress than my intelligently stopping the pattern that eventually led to a tearful, "But MOM! I didn't finish picking UP the playroom!"

"You can do that after you eat."

"But you're VACUUMING! The pieces will get all sucked up!' That last sentence ended in a practically inaudible little squeak of a cry. Dunc is a master of ending sentences in a pitifully heartbreaking squawk, complete with pathetic frown and big sad eyes and not a trace of phoniness or deliberation.

"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh...." So I explained that I understood his concern, but that I would NOT go vacuum in the playroom until he told me everything was all picked up, so he really could go have his breakfast because I promised I would not go in the playroom and suck up any Lego pieces.

He went back into the kitchen. I went back to vacuuming the living room. Dunc went back to the playroom. You can see how much I'm trusted when it comes to Legos.