What do you get when you cross a toddler with a purple crayon?

A big purple mess, that's what.

I was home with my 2-year-old on Monday and Tuesday. She came down with a stomach bug, which we discovered on our way to work when she decided to share the entire contents of her chocolate milk bottle all over her car seat. If there's one thing I can't handle, it's vomit. ESPECIALLY in the car.

I'll spare you the details, but I immediately drove her home and plunked her in the bath tub. Since I knew there would be more of the same, I began making a pile of soiled clothes in a basket in the living room to wash later and avoid doing 20 loads of laundry. The McCaffreys are helping to save the planet one load of laundry at a time! This turned out to be a good strategy, as my 2-month-old decided that he didn't want to be left out and proceeded to blow out his diaper, consequently earning himself a bath as well.

The clothing pile grew.

Throughout the day I added messy clothes, carseat covers, changing pads, and couch cushion covers to the basket. After both kids were in bed, I took the laundry pile to the washing machine and dumped it all in. There was no way I was sorting everything into piles of Lights and Darks. There was only 1 pile: Gross. I set the machine to wash everything on cold and when the cycle was done, tossed it all in the dryer. I went to bed that night hoping for a full night's sleep, free of any bodily fluids.  

The next day my daughter woke up her happy, energetic self again. While I was rejoicing in the end of  the Great Stomach Bug of 2011, my husband walked into the kitchen with some interesting news.

"The dryer is blue."

"What? What are you talking about?"

"It's blue! The dryer is blue and purple, and I found THIS in the washer." Holding up a badly mangled blue violet crayon. "You need to be more careful with what you put in the wash."

Yes, because my idea of fun is to toss a purple crayon into the washer with a load of soiled clothes and then spend the next morning trying to scrape wax off my clothes and the drum of the dryer. I like to live on the edge like that. It's not for everyone.

Needless to say, I discovered that Haley, in the midst of her supposed sickness, found enough energy to hide a crayon in the basket of dirty laundry on the floor as she was coloring the previous afternoon. Of course, since the clothes were all puke-y and covered in other grossness, I didn't bother to sift through them.

Did you know you can get out crayon stains with WD-40 and dish detergent? Me either. Until yesterday.