I am still a little bitter about what happened on Saturday.

Saturday was....horrible.  The worst.

I was in a mood to get my house clean.  It has been neglected.  I started washing load after load of laundry.  I washed 4 loads.  Nearly every article of clothing in our house was dirty.  It felt good to make progress.  While the laundry was being washed and dried, I was working on other projects (mopping the floor, organizing cupboards, cleaning the fridge).  I didn't want to stop to fold laundry so I just put them in a huge pile in the corner of the living room on top of our Love Sac.

I got to the point in the kitchen that I could spray down the counters with my Clorox spray (seriously, that stuff is amazing).  I sprayed half the counter and started scrubbing.  All the while, the girls were giggling and playing so nicely with each other.  After scrubbing I decided to work on the other counter....but I couldn't find my spray.  I've been pretty spacey lately.  After looking around for where I may have put it, I lost steam.   I decided I would just start folding the laundry.

I picked up the first few articles of clothing and noticed one or two really small bleach spots on them.  By the time I lifted the third shirt out of the mound to fold, the bleach smell hit me and I began to connect all of the dots.  Then I found the spray bottle.  The girls had sprayed my spray all over the 4 loads of laundry.  SO many ruined clothes.  The deeper I dug, the bigger the bleach spots became.  Massive bleach spots all over the clothes.  The girls' non-awful clothes.  My work clothes.  I still feel like crying when I think about it.

Luckily for my children, I had said a prayer that very morning to be a better and more patient mother.  After I was done crying and calling my mother-in-law to have an emotional breakdown (which I accidentally did with my windows open, so that all of the neighbors could hear.  Ugh.), I called the girls to the living room and showed them the mound of bleached clothes.  I explained to them that the spray was dangerous.  Then Peyton and I had this conversation:

Me:  Peyton, see all these clothes?  They are all ruined.  We can't spray things with that bottle because it ruins things and takes the color away.

Peyton: (With a reassuring smile) We can wait and tomorrow the clothes will be better!

Me: No, Peyton.  Tomorrow they will still be ruined.  They will be ruined forever.

Peyton:  Will they be ruined on Wednesday?

Me: Yes.  They will be ruined on Wednesday.  They will always be ruined.

Peyton:  Will they be ruined when I'm sixteen?

Me: Yes!  They are ruined forever.  They will still be ruined when you are sixteen.  A hundred years from now, they will still be ruined.  They are bleached forever.

Peyton: Oh....

She seemed sad and put her head down.  After a few seconds of sad silence, she looked at me with a new light in her eyes and asked with hope, "Will they be ruined at 3 o'clock!?"

I got through the ordeal (it was a serious ordeal for me) without yelling at my children.  Sure I had to cry and call my mother-in-law, but if I had a trophy made of high-quality chocolate, I would have given it to myself.

On the plus side, the girls were not hurt (so dangerous!  I know you are wondering how I could have not noticed.  They were giggling and playing between the couch and the mound.  I thought they were just playing) and they didn't bleach the carpet or the couch.  It could have been worse.  I can't wait to be a stay-at-home mom so that I can tackle this stuff little by little instead of having one day a week to try to clean and accomplish everything.  I know that being a stay-at-home mom is hard, but I can't help but think that these kinds of things will happen less.