on my to do list serious dryer warning~

Seeing as how I have exactly 18 minutes until Bible time is officially supposed to begin, I thought I'd take a minute to jot down what I'm trying to accomplish today and a few things I'm thinking about and want to do. Just a little glimpse into my life...

*I just put the last load of clothes into my dryer - yipee! My laundry is all done, until tonight of course when they'll just fill it back up again. Monday is technically my laundry day, but anyone with little kids knows how that goes. Further complicating things is the fact that Haven's bed sits against the otherside of the same wall as the washer and dryer, so I try to not disturb his napping. And furthermore, my husband is an incredibly particular sleeper and has to have things "just so" in order to go to bed - lest any of you think he is completely perfect :o) So no laundry at night.

***HUGE BIG NOTE WHILE I'M THINKING ABOUT IT - NEVER LEAVE YOUR DRYER OPEN! LAST WEEK GLEN AND I FOUND NOAH STUCK IN THE DRYER! (this is the point where my sister flips out) THANKFULLY, HE HAD ONLY BEEN IN THERE FOR A FEW SECONDS AND STILL THOUGHT IT WAS FUNNY, BUT GLEN AND I WERE HORRIFIED AND WE ARE NOT "FREAK OUT" PARENTS (AS I LIKE TO JOKE). Noah loves to be my laundry helper and most nights you can find us after dinner in the laundry room with me handing him each article of clothing individually and him throwing it in the dryer saying "Ca-wub's shuwt" or whatever it is. Well, this particular night all the laundry was folded and put away, we had just finished. I never leave the dryer open, and I'm not sure why I did that night, but nevertheless, a few minutes later, he had climbed in and shut the door on himself. Our dryer has a window so he could see out. Glen happened to walk by and I'm not sure what prompted him to check (well I do know, it was obviously the Lord). He opened the door and got him out, told him quite sternly "No, no! We don't play in the dryer, you can get hurt! That will hurt Noah!" I happened to be right there as soon as it happened. My first thoughts were; we need to tell the other kids, would he do it again, and what would happen if Glen had not found him. I suggested we put him down, leave the dryer door open again, and see what would happen so we could kind of guage the situation. Those of you that know me, know that I have a slight hearing problem, not huge (I still often hear Haven waking up before anyone else), but enough that I depend a little on my other kids to tell me things sometimes. So, we walk away from Noah, he climbs back in, and closes the door. We decide to watch, but don't want to wait too long not knowing how much oxygen is really in there, but want to see how the situation plays out, will he get scared, will he cry, will I hear him if he cries? So, we turn off the laundry room light (again, we don't want to wait too long) and stand around the corner. Sure enough, he started to cry and we can barely, barely hear him. It was very scary, and very serious. This was at night, after all the other kids were in bed, if it happened during the day and there was noise, there is no way we would have heard him. I don't know how loud he would have to get to be heard, but I'm not going to be testing that! Anyway, Glen got him out, spanked him, we both talked very, very sternly to him, etc. and talked to all the other kids about what happened and how dangerous it could be. Thankfully, leaving the dryer door open is not a habit any of us has, but you can bet we are now making extra sure that it stays closed!

So much for my to do list, it's now four minutes past Bible time!! My seven year old son is turning this into let's sneak a sandwich time! Gotta go. I had been wanting to write about the dryer thing though, seeing as how mostly everyone I know has a dryer and little kids...this is the part where I remind myself that the Lord is watching over them and I am trusting Him to keep them all safe. Period.