Today is Saturday. Also known as Laundry Day.
My three-year-old and I were sorting the dirty laundry into three piles: whites, colors, and darks. Ignoring the possibly politically incorrect naming of those clothes piles, she was doing a great job of helping me prep the laundry.
Once the clothes were sorted, we pushed the whites down to the washing machine. The washer is a front-load model, so we swung open the door and started stuffing the laundry in. She grabbed a towel. I tossed in a robe. She pushed in some socks. I flung in Lamby.
"I don't want Lamby in there!" Sammy said. Lamby, her soft, white, plush stuffed lamb, was draped over a mound of soiled whites. her plastic eyes gazing back at Samantha. The little lamb looked like she feared for her life.
"No, it's okay," I said. "She's dirty. She'll be cleaned up as good as new."
"She'll get squashed!" Sammy protested.
"No, no, she'll be fine. Really." I felt like reassurring her, Cheney style, that this household waterboarding was a "no-brainer."
"But I don't want her to get squashed!" She wasn't buying.
"Ok, ok. I'll take her out." So I grabbed Lamby, rescuing her from certain cleansing. As I did that, I grabbed a towel, draped it over my hand, stuffed Lamby underneath it, and put the wrapped toy back in the washing machine. Bad daddy.
We continued loading the washer. After the last sock was crammed inside, Sammy looked around. "Where's Lamby?"
Uh oh. My wife laughed from the other room. "Um, she's over there," I lied, pointing to the bedroom.
"Where?"
"Over there."
"I don't see her!"
"Sammy, look at this!" Distraction always works. I showed her how to load detergent into the machine.
"I wanna see!" Hook line and sinker. We added detergent, turned on the machine, and I was Scott-free.
"Where's Lamby?" Crap.
"Uh, I'm going to take a shower. Why don't you go read a book with your mummy?"
"But where's La..." I didn't hear the end, as I closed the bathroom door and turned on the fan. Very bad daddy.