Emptying the Dishwasher Craziness

Living with mom does have its moments. Sometimes, there's miscommunication, sometimes worry, sometimes hilarity, sometimes frustration, but always love and caring.

There are many things mom does that we just can't change. So we keep quiet.

She feels she has to trim the trees in the oddest way you can imagine. Poor Art, who loves bonsai and learned the proper way to trim trees when he was a Tree Keeper in Illinois often winces when he sees her handiwork.

Mom also feels she has to do laundry whenever the sun is shining so she can hang her clothes. This is whether there's a full load to wash or not.

Now, about the dishwasher. Whenever we run the dishwasher at night, she would start putting away the dishes at 4:30 in the morning before she has her breakfast. It would almost always wake me up since we don't close our bedroom door upstairs in case she needs to call us. For some reason, the clanking of the dishes are extra loud at 4:30 in the morning. Sometimes, I might have forgotten to run the dishwasher and she'd put the dirty dishes away. Whatever the case, we let it go because we thought it was something she just had to do.

Art and I came up with the solution on the left and then this summer our daughter gave us this fancy thing we could attach to the dishwasher which would indicate whether the dishes were clean or not.

One morning, I forgot to indicate I'd run the dishwasher so mom didn't put the dishes away. When she walked into the kitchen, she apologized for not putting them away. I gently told her it would really be nice if she let us put the dishes away.

"Really?" she said. "I'm so glad. Now I can eat my breakfast before it gets cold."

After she left, Art laughed and said, "Ummm.... Did she ever consider putting the dishes away after she had her breakfast?"

Whatever the case, we're all happy now because I for one am getting more sleep.