If you want to do a load of laundry...

(With apologies to Laura Numeroff)

If you want to do a load of laundry, the baby will fill her diaper. When you start to change her, you realize she might have more poop in there waiting for such a foolish move, so you decide to sort your laundry while you're waiting for her to finish filling her diaper.

While you're sorting, you decide to sort two loads, in case you have time to do a second load later. Soon you have two piles on the bedroom floor.

You realize you forgot to bring a laundry basket in with you, so you go out to look for one. One has folded laundry that needs to be put away, and the other is filled with the four-year-old's stuffed animals. You pick up the basket with clean clothes and make the rounds to put them away.

When you head back to the bedroom to put a load in the basket, you remember the baby and her poopy diaper. You've waited too long, so it has leaked all over her clothes. You run to her room to grab an outfit.

You remove her soiled outfit and diaper, and proceed to wipe her bottom. Luckily, you have enough wipes (the only such luck you will have today). Unluckily, before you can blink, she sticks her foot, sock still on it, into the goo.

You run back to her room to get a clean pair of socks.

When the baby is clean, dry, and re-clothed, you pick up the basket to go put that load in it...and the baby immediately starts crying. You realize she's hungry, so you bend down to pick her up. As soon as you do, the four-year-old says, "Mom, I'm hungry. It's 10:00. (who taught her to tell time??) Can I have a snack?"

So you put the baby down on a blanket, and run to the kitchen to get graham crackers and yogurt out, hurrying before the baby's fussing turns into a full-blown scream.

When the four-year-old is settled at the table with her snack, you pick the baby back up and sit in the rocking chair to nurse her. Before long, she falls asleep. You carefully and quietly lay her down.

As you are tiptoeing back to your room to put the laundry in the basket, the four-year-old asks to watch a video. So you go into the living room and ask her which video she wants to watch. You wait as she tries to decide. "Blue's Clues? Dora the Explorer? Veggie Tales? Or maybe you'd rather watch PBS?" She finally picks a video, and you pop it into the VCR.

You head back to the bedroom, basket in hand. FINALLY! you get the load into the basket and carry it to the washing machine. The washing machine still has a wet load from yesterday in it, so you open the dryer to transfer it. The dryer still has clothes in it from the day before yesterday, so you need a basket to put the clean clothes in. One basket has the dirty load you're about to wash in it. You go looking for the other.

When you find it, it still has all the four-year-old's stuffed animals in it. You dump the stuffed animals on the four-year-old's bed, take the basket to the dryer, transfer clothes from the dryer into the basket, and move the clothes in the washer into the dryer. You start the dryer. Oops, forgot the dryer sheet.

Finally, you run water in the washer and grab the bottle of detergent. It's empty, so you go to the closet to get a new bottle. In the closet you see a huge spider, so you run to find a tissue so you can squash the spider. In the bathroom, as you are getting a tissue, you realize that one of the cats has thrown up on the floor...as you step in it. You curse, remove your sock, run back to your bedroom, and open your dresser drawer looking for a clean pair of socks.

After you put your socks on, you go back to the bathroom, clean up the cat puke, get another tissue, and head back to the closet to kill the spider. In the closet you see the bottle of detergent on the floor, and as you pick it up...the baby starts to cry. Because...

...if you want to do a load of laundry, the baby will fill her diaper.