You know you're a mom

Last week, T. brought home a small clay pot filled with vermiculite and seeds of some sort. It was what he chose to spend his remaining "auction money" (a first grade thing, about which I am still confused--although I'm grateful he didn't bring home any of the annoying toys I donated to it) on and he was convinced it was an instant grow kit. When he discovered it wasn't he put the pot on the dryer and completely forgot about it, as did I.

Well, someone inadvertantly knocked it into my washer when I asked the kids to toss all their dirty stuff in and it didn't land on the top of the clothes. Oh no. It was buried in the middle and since I didn't know that, I ran the washer. Imagine my horror when I start pulling "clean" clothes out of the dryer to find small brown flecks all over them. My first thought was that one of my children had had a bit of an accident in their pants and just tossed them without warning me. Yes, this has happened before and the outcome is similar to what I've just described. But, because I am a mom and therefore a poop connisseur, I carefully smelled the offending item of clothing. (Sorry to gross out you non-parents but I know any parents out there would back me up that this is the preferred method of determining just what you are dealing with.) Imagine my surprise when the brown stuff is odorless. So I continue pulling clothing out and having to shake it well to get all the unidentified brown stuff off of it (in preparation for it to be run through the wash yet again, as if laundry wasn't never-ending enough). Not until I am down to the last few bits of clothes do I come across the clay pot. It wasn't broken. Not even chipped. It was just really, really clean--and empty. Because I'm smarter than your average bear, I continued to shake out the remaining articles of clothing before the lightbulb finally went on and I realized the stuff I had showered all over the laundry room floor was the peaty vermiculite from the pot.

I know you all saw it coming from the first sentence of this entry, but I had a bit of a handicap. First of all, I didn't expect a plant pot and its contents to be in my washer. And secondly, my dryer is currently covered in an odd assortment of stuff since I've turned it into the area we dump anything the movers broke. So you see, I never noticed the disappearance of one small pot from the colossal mountain that is awaiting the moving assessor's scorn.

Fast forward to today as I am getting dressed for my run. It's colder than usual right now but given that I live in the sunny south, that doesn't mean it's too cold to run outside. It just means I am wearing long sleeves and pants. But since we had a couple of more reasonable days in there, I am pulling on a long sleeved shirt I haven't worn in over a week. I'm sure you can already see where this is going. Yes, the inside of my shirt is strangely gritty. Again, that blazing intelligence comes to my rescue and after picking several brown crumbs off of the hands I've thrust through the sleeves, I remember the dratted pot. Obviously this shirt was in that load of laundry and even more obviously, a second washing didn't solve the vermiculite problem. So what is my lazy answer to dealing with all of this? Well, the shirt is already on my body and since it is going to need to be washed to try to get rid of the dirt for a third time, I opt to just ignore the grit and run in it. I must say I was oddly speckled looking when I hopped in the shower after my run.

And while there has been no sign of sprouting in the washer, I can't remember what the seeds were so I can't speak to their resiliency. They are certainly getting watered enough to germinate. So if I post about mysterious plants growing in the washer, someone remind me why they are there, will you?!