Semi-automatic clothes washing

Picture this: six people's worth of dirty laundry and a broken washer. What to do? Sure you could go to the laundromat, but where's the fun in that? Especially when you have small children and a bath tub.

Since I hadn't done the week's laundry yet when my washer broke down last Sunday, and since I didn't know when the part would come in, I threw a load in the tub with a scoop of detergent, a six year old and a nine year old. They swished the clothes all around and stomped on them a lot. We drained the dirty water (whether it was so dirty from the clothes or the feet I'm not sure) and filled the tub again. Rinse and repeat.

They had so much fun we did a second load. I tell you, I have never seen such disappointment as when the new part came in the mail and the washer got fixed. They were hoping it would never come. I think they would have happily done laundry every day. Now if only I could get them to be that excited about laundry done the regular way!