Friday Laundry Adventures

Ah, Fridays. My newly dubbed Laundry Day. Some of you may think this is depressing, but I enjoy doing laundry. Even more so when I can take a couple hours out of my morning and get all the loads done at the laundromat.

(side note: we did our budget for April and looked at the monthly cost of taking our laundry to the laundromat. My goodness, it's a lot of money! It doesn't seem like much at the time, but it really adds up!)

Fortunately, I found a laundromat that's nearby, in good working order, and barely has any patrons on Friday mornings. I'm selfish antisocial cool like that.

The first time we showed up, the laundry attendant came over to us with a small basket full of toys. Peanut's eyes lit up like a Christmas tree and she said quietly under her breath, "wow."

These toys aren't anything special. A lot of them seem to be happy meal toys from various establishments, but by Peanut's reaction you'd think I just gave her the keys to a toy store.

Now that we've been going to this laundromat on a regular basis, she has developed her "favorites" from the toy bin. Let's look at the cast of characters (pardon the photos, but these were taken with my phone under the wonderful fluorescent lighting):



By far, one of Peanut's favorite toys. This toy car has taken many a journey across plastic chairs, washers, and occasionally off-roads on the buttons of the soda machine.


Another car. Not as big and impressive as the first, but this little guy can CRUISE! Often seen on adventures with the one pictured below.


This is the creepiest choice, but she loves it all the same. I get what it is supposed to be [Padme in a royal cruiser (I think? Forgive me if I botched my Star Wars vehicle labeling)], but it's a bobblehead. In a space ship with wheels. No matter...Peanut uses this as her "Super Why!" vehicle.
"Super readers...to the RESCUE!"



And no adventure would be complete without a ragtag group of heroes! I give you...
Angry Man!
Condescending Military Guy! (*pat* *pat* "that's OK Spidey...you tried your best")
and....
Spider Man!

And where does this group hang out in between daring adventures?


On the bible, of course.

When the last item is folded and we are ready to go, Peanut and I put the toys back in the bin and return them to the attendant. Once handed off, I am given this face in protest:


"Mama...I don't wanna GO!"

Though today was different. I think she has figured out we will come back next week (at least until we have a washer of our own).

Random Thursday #1

Since I started doing Fatherhood Fridays last week, I decided it was best to save my random post for a different day and focus my Friday post on one idea (lest the new readers get all sorts of confused).

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Peanut learned how to pivot-crawl in a circle. This lead to a hilarious scene the other night of her circling a toy. If only I had thought to capture it on video.

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Peanut's "Silent Night" book is losing its battery power. She was playing with it yesterday and it sounded like a distorted horror movie tune - complete with creepy flickering lights. Who knew "Silent Night" could be so fear-inducing? I was freaked out. So, it shall remain turned off until we buy a replacement battery. I'm not looking forward to the day when her stand-up monkey toy starts to do the same thing.

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We are raising a howler monkey. She loves to screech, as loud as she can, whenever ShankRabbit and I are hugging...or when we are playing tag around the house she uses this ear-piercing holler as a defense mechanism.

Upon researching 'teh intarwebz' for a picture of this crazy monkey (the real one, not Peanut), I realized our nickname of "howler monkey" is more appropriate than we thought:

...the din can be heard up to three miles (five kilometers) away. ...The noise sends a clear message to other monkeys: This territory is already occupied by a troop.

Wouldn't it be great if I could share video of this with you? Oh, you don't want your ears to bleed? I understand.

Random Friday #3

I'm not really sure if this is the 3rd Random Friday or not...so, I'm declaring it to be so. Here we go -

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This is a picture the homemade teething biscuits I made for Peanut, all set for the freezer. They were easy to make and taste exactly like sugar cookies. Really! I have no problem admitting I ate one...or two...

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Have you ever been in such a rush to get out of the house that you forgot to brush your teeth? Ok, maybe a few of you can agree.

And since you ran out of gum the day before, you grab a peppermint candy cane to munch on as you run out the door?
I didn't think so.

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Peanut was playing with her fridge letters last night and pulled a few off. These were the only letters she removed:



Now, is she from Boston and trying to tell me she wants to party or does she need a bathroom break?
Maybe it's a different word entirely. I've never been good at anagrams.

3 pounds of fun

Warm day + melting snow + 3 pounds of tree roots clogging a drainage system =



Yes, that is water on our basement floor. On the plus side, we've gone through our basement flooding before (torrential downpours of June 08 - major flooding, disappearance of Lake Delton)...so nothing of real importance was sitting on the floor. And I caught the water early enough it didn't have a chance to spread throughout the entire basement. Still...it sucks cleaning that stuff up.

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When you've given your child all toys possible to keep her occupied while you make dinner, you improvise.

I present you with the purse....of WONDER:



(oooh, aaaah)

Provides at least a half hour of entertainment - crinkling the paper, taking it out of the pockets and putting it back in, petting the leather of the purse, trying to open the zipper...

Who would of thought those Valpak coupons I don't use could be so beneficial in other ways?