Undone

A crayon went through our washer (and dryer) and now, a load of laundry (with some great cute clothes of my kids) has been ruined.

I’m upset. Especially since some of the clothes that have been ruined are Audrey’s Christmas clothes (Dress and PJ’s) and the prescribed method to get it out is the following:

1.      Examine all articles of clothing from the offending batch of laundry. You will want to remove the crayon from all pieces of clothing at one time. It’s going to be tedious and time consuming, but it’s definitely a process worth going through.
2. Lay the stained area of clothing on several paper towels. Four or five paper towels should do the trick. Try not to have any layers of material under the stain or you may end up with more mess than you bargained for.
3. Spray the stains with a car part lubricant. Let it sit for a few minutes. Flip the clothing over and spray on the opposite side. Let the fabric sit for a few minutes more.
4. Pour a little liquid dishwashing detergent onto the stained area. Gently rub the detergent into the stain. The wax will work it’s way onto the paper towels. Replace the towels as needed. Continue to work detergent into the stain until all of the crayon is removed.
5. Wash the clothing with laundry detergent and color-safe bleach. Use a hot water cycle for 15 minutes or on the heavy load option. Rinse the clothing in warm water.
6. Verify that the stain(s) have been completely removed. If there’s still crayon residue on the clothing, repeat steps above.

I don’t know what the life of a Stay at home mom is like, but I can tell you I don’t have time to clean 15+ items like this, especially each spot on the item. some of them have 5-10 areas on it that would need this method.  Part of me says to just move on and replace the items, but some of them are irreplaceable. One of Audrey/Katie’s receiving blankets got marked up, and honestly even though I could make a new one (or my mom could, whatever, since she made that one) it wouldn’t be the same. So I guess I’ll go through and determine “Can I/Should I save this?” and work from there. It’s really disheartening. i already feel like a failure most of the time because I’m really hard on myself as it is, but to have proof kind of bugs me. *sigh*really though when you think about it, one load of ruined laundry looking back over 5 years of being married and I did some of my own laundry (and my parents) prior to that, it’s a fairly good track record I guess.

I better go get the kids in the bath while I figure out what to do now… 🙁

Derringer Meryl [upset] out