Stupid is as Stupid does!

Having a 2 year old living in your home amounts to HUGE LOADS of spontaneous fun! And when I say, "Huge loads" what I really mean is, multiple washings! Time and time again I am reminded that 'Stupid is as Stupid does' and unfortunately in this story, I'M THE STUPID ONE!

Yesterday morning while talking on the phone, yes I know I'm always talking on the phone, and yes I know that lots of things happen right under my nose while I'm talking on the phone, but I swear this time it was different! I was talking on the phone and Talan wanted to go outside to play. It was cold, rainy and wet outside and I didn't want him out there. I decided to let him go out into the garage instead. We do this all the time. There are lots of toys in the garage. Usually he finds a scooter and rides around on it. I opened the door to the garage and stood in front of the door, propping it open so that I could hear him play. You know being a good mother, NOT leaving my child unattended! He went into the garage and I stood there talking on the phone. All of a sudden I could smell the smell of gasoline! NO! Tell me it isn't so! I ran out to find that Talan had found the gasoline cans. He was holding the smaller of the two cans pouring gasoline out all over the garage floor. Talan looked up at me with a huge grin on his face! I yelled, "No Talan, No!" I grabbed the gasoline can away from him and put it away while Talan stepped forward stepping right into the huge puddle of gasoline. The gasoline was covering the entire area where Davids truck sits when he's home. I quickly stripped Talan down to nothing and took him into the house. As I passed the washing machine on the way to take Talan to the bathtub I threw his pajamas in knowing they would need to be washed. This was STUPID #1 on my part. I should have just thrown the stupid pajamas in the garbage in the garage instead! Okay maybe stupid #1 was really letting Talan play in the garage, and stupid #2 was talking on the phone while doing so, and this is really stupid #3 but lets just call this stupid #1 to help me feel better about being so stupid!

Right there, can you see the red and brown stripped pajamas in the washing machine? That's the stupid problem I have been dealing with for 2 days now!
Okay so lets talk about STUPID move #2. After getting Talan situated in the bathtub I ran back out to the garage and opened both garage doors and the back door leading to the backyard to air the fumes out. Now this was NOT the stupid move #2. This was in fact very smart on my part! Within a few short hours the huge puddles of gasoline had evaporated only leaving a larger than life gasoline smell behind! After opening everything up I went back into the house to deal with the pajamas. Now for STUPID move #2, I threw a whole load of clothes in with the gasoline soaked pajamas thinking,... well, apparently I wasn't really thinking! But you have to understand that the fumes of gasoline were really strong. My laundry room smelled extremely strong and my brain must have been effected by the fumes (or at least that's what I would like to think).

And so this is when I officially registered for my laundry 101 class. Because I'll tell you, I've learned a lot about laundry since my brilliant STUPID move #2!
Is this what 2 year old children are made for? To teach us life lessons such as this? I'm starting to really wonder how I made it all the way to child #5 before learning this little lesson! And so for this I am grateful to Talan. For he has brought me one step closer to becoming a domestic diva I so desperately want to become! And why didn't I ever purchase "The Queen of Clean" book before? I can't tell you how many times I watched her do little segments on channel 3's Good Morning Arizona. I could have really used her book yesterday!

I washed the load once, it still smelled of gasoline. I washed the load twice, and it still smelled of gasoline. I took the pajamas out and scrubbed them by hand with Clorox bleach for colors and then let them soak for hours. I just about threw the other clothes in the dryer which would have been STUPID #3 but remembered my neighbor Michele telling me she heard something about the dangers of gasoline and dryers. I then turned to the internet to learn that if my clothes had any trace of gasoline smell on them, it could cause great problems to dry them in the dryer. Problems I fear to learn about! I read more about getting gasoline out of clothing. I read that I could use a citrus based cleaner to get the gasoline out and then white vinegar to get the citrus cleaner smell out. It just so happens that I not only have one large bottle of USadvantage Citrus based cleaner that I bought from a scary in my face door to door salesman, but I have two! I washed my clothes for a third time using the citrus cleaner, and they still had a tint of gasoline smell to them. I washed my clothes for a fourth time with the citrus cleaner and now they truly smelled of citrus! I washed them for a fifth time using white vinegar, and they still smelled of citrus. So now I'm washing them for a sixth time with white vinegar and regular detergent, so that hopefully I can wash them for a seventh time with just my regular detergent!

Stupid is as Stupid does and ladies and gentlemen,
I'm one STU-PI-DO!!!