Finally, My Great Discovery

First of all, I'd like to offer my sincerest apologies for the delay in getting my post done today. I had every intention of doing it as soon as I got home from school today. However, late last night my dad was taken to the emergency room and admitted due to a severely infected gall bladder. He needs to have surgery, but, because he is a quadriplegic everything is more complicated. So, when I got home from school we had to run by my parent's house to pick up some things and then head to the hospital. We then took my mom out to get some dinner. She is still in a wheelchair herself due to her surgery for her broken foot so she still can't drive. Afterwards we returned her to the hospital then went back to their house to feed their dog. So, we've just gotten home and I've just gotten Andrew to bed. Anyway, back to our regularly scheduled programming . . .

As I said yesterday, I have unraveled one of life's greatest mysteries. Or at least life in our household. It is something that has plagued me in an especially disturbing manner since the addition of Andrew to our family. I'm sure many of you have experienced the exact same thing. Truthfully, before I was a mom it happened, but not very frequently, so it didn't really bother me. But over the past several months? Well, it has been enough to drive me nearly criminally insane. The problem? Socks lost in the laundry. Specifically, Andrew's socks.

I have always done Andrew's laundry separately from ours. His dirties are stored separately. His dirties are washed separately. And dried too. And folded and put away. For months now I have been plagued by socks that have wound up as lonely singles at the end of laundry day. And for the first several months I just truly didn't have the energy or time to worry about it.

However, about a month ago I made a concentrated effort to get to the bottom of things as Andrew's socks were disappearing in the Bermuda triangle of our laundry room. I would check before starting the wash to make sure that I had both socks of a pair. While transferring from washing machine to dryer I would double check I hadn't missed anything. While folding laundry I would shake everything out, check front and back, down sleeves, legs and feet searching for little sockies. But, to no avail. These little lonely sockies are the latest victims just in the past month . . . have a look at my "survivors" . . .

Alarming, huh? Well, after this last week's laundry I had two more victims. I checked the dry clothes, while still in the laundry room, three separate times. I searched with a flashlight in every corner of the laundry room, behind the Bermuda triangle appliances, and under and between too. But, to no avail. I'll have you know that B found great humor in the lengths I was going to search for these wayward socks. Finally, I decided that the missing socks must be going either out the drain from the washer, or through the dryer vent. I practically crawled inside of our front-loading washer to get a better look when my hand slipped through the edge of the rubber door seal. Look what I found . . . .
That's right . . . a soggy, dirty, slimy, smelly mess of all of the wayward socks. Here they all are . . . as you can see, I have apparently had this problem since Halloween. Ick!

I can't tell you the relief I feel to have solved this great mystery in life! Or at least my life. My solution? I sent B to Tar-zhay today to buy me a $2.99 lingerie laundry bag. No more lost little sockies for us!

Oh, and I'm sorry to say that I haven't solved the mystery of how to get kids to sleep. We've been really lucky with Andrew. He is the easiest baby in the world. At bedtime we simply put him in his crib (usually between 7 and 8 pm), turn on the mobile, and walk away. He goes right to sleep and we don't hear from him until between 6:30 to 7:30 am.