ps on the martha thing ...

So I forgot one other classic "reality" story in my previous Martha post ... this one's been in the vault for quite some time, but it so perfectly illustrates what can happen when young kids are left to themselves that I just had to share this now legendary story - heck, we've all been there (right? please say yes ...). There was one very lazy Sunday morning several years back when our then 2 and 5 year old ladybugs were quietly playing downstairs ... I should have realized that it was the bad kind of quiet much earlier than I did. By the time I arrived on the scene, this is what I discovered ...

I have no photos of the horror, just this 16 second video clip ... that white floor in front of the washer/dryer isn't usually white - it's beige. That white stuff is laundry soap. Note the toy box pushed up to the washer - it was used as a step stool. Scoop by scoop, the two of them emptied out a very full BJ's-sized carton (110 loads to be exact) of Tide powder detergent aaaaaaall over their playroom (which obviously has a laundry wall on one side) ... easily 80-90 scoops of soap were all over everything. It was in the carpeting, all over the toys, in their hair, in their pockets ... if it was in that room, it had soap on it. The cleanup proved to be very difficult - especially for the girls themselves ... can you imagine having to rinse that much laundry soap out of a toddler's hair?! As I recall, we hung their heads over the kitchen sink and used the sprayer. Washing cats would have been easier. And then there was the playroom cleanup too ... we used a vacuum but the soap left an oily residue behind that turned into a soapy slick when we took damp towels to it. It took ages for things to feel normal again!

Ah, the blessings of curious children! Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow ...