Shopping and Potty-training

...the two great battlefields of motherhood.

The other day I went to the store with the five youngest.  Wow! It was like herding chickens :D.  With COVID-19, I normally don't take more than one--two tops!--with me to the store.  However, I was tired of choosing which would be "the chosen one" that day and so everyone Hava and younger went.  

I remembered so many other reasons why I don't usually take more than one or two.

Running around, finding things, reprimanding each other, getting distracted, throwing unnecessary things into the cart, damaging items that--fortunately--I was planning on buying anyway.  And they all had really great attitudes and intentions. It was just that with five different great attitudes and intentions, it was just too much for me (or the store, for that matter) to handle.  I came home and Liliputian took over with directing the unloading and putting away while I just sat down and stared at the wall.  Our policy is, "you eat here, so you help unload and put away groceries." Pretty simple, but today, it was more than I could take after our "fun" at the store.

After I shored up my energy, I tried a shot at schooling....
I did math with Maia for about a chapter and a half, with Liesl running through naked after stripping down in the kitchen and Eli insisting on getting help with his "math" workbook to see if he had finished it yet.  In the meanwhile, Hava was asking my help with organizing the allowance for last month...It can sure be hard to focus! 

It was definitely a nap day.

*****

I have decided to try using cloth diapers again, thanks to my sister Sarah gifting me some of her old supplies that were in amazing condition.  A lot has changed since I did cloth diapers with Avot so these modern liners and covers are pretty slick to take care of. I even invested in a much needed diaper pail that pretty much eliminates any trace of smell.  So--other than the obvious draw-back of dealing more intimately with nastiness--it's pretty painless.

Zuli loves it for some reason and is always asking to see her poop.  Delightful.

I am pretty sure I will transition off of cloth when the baby comes in October.  I have also hired Liliputian to potty-train Zuli, but we both agree to wait until 3, the age where I start potty-training most of my kiddos. And even then, I tend to give up pretty easily.  

With Lek, it was "do or die!"  We had just experienced brilliant success with almost 3 year old Avot.  Q-dawg had read and applied "Potty Training In Less Than A Day" and in it's sage pages, the author affirmed that if a child was old enough to follow instructions and pull their pants up and down by themselves, they were ready to potty-training.  Our attention then focused on the hapless Lek, who was a mere 18 months old.  A year and a half later (of relentless determination to never give in!) he was getting the hang of it. It was not pretty and I learned my lesson. Isaa-boo was 3 before we even pretended to begin.  I would allow the other kiddos to try it out but I would never emotionally commit.

And sometimes I would even give in after! I remember with Chugger-dude that the morning started well as we decided that he was ready.  I recklessly went to the store, thinking all was well. I came home to a trail of poop from the front porch all the way upstairs into the bathroom.

I gave up.

He actually ended up pretty much potty training himself.

Hence, I am willing to pay Liliputian $100 to work with Zuli ;).

Goblin Valley and Groceries

Q-dawg took most of the kids to Goblin Valley last week with his parents and sister.  Their cousins were also able to come along and they had a great time.  Hava was the GPS genius, going over hills and around and walking right up to the cache they were looking for.    They finally hid the travel bug that they got in Hungary and picked up another one to send back to our geo-caching buddies over there.

Night games, tag, and yummy food were all highlights. In their game of snowball hide-and-seek, they finally had to get Chugger-dude to come out and reveal his hiding place because no one could find then.  Q-dawg also had fun running around, toying with people as they tried to catch him.  They even got to talk unrestrained by mom's indignation about "inappropriate conversation at the dinner table," much to Grandma's chagrin:  "I wish your mom was here!" she said when one of the kids commented about how mom wouldn't have approved of what they were talking about.  Poor Grandma :(.

I wish I had been there, too, but when you have two little babies that are lying about, feverish, vomiting and with diarrhea, you don't go anywhere, especially not on a five hour drive.  Within the first hour of them leaving, I cleaned up four different messes, including one all over me.  Nice.  I spent the next two days between snuggling, cleaning up them and doing some tidying around the house when they were both lying lethargic and sick in front of movies.  I figure watching a bunch of movies when they were little didn't permanently affect Avot and Lek, so we watched a few a day.  I do like to keep them pretty low-key though and I particularly enjoyed "Emma" (fast-forwarded version) and "Sense and Sensibility."  I was happy to clean during the Barbie princess movies.

*********************
 I scored big when I went grocery shopping last Saturday: discount milk!  Checking the expiration dates, I figure I had a five day window for us to consume 7 gallons of milk...no problem!  When the bagger at the front commented about all the milk, I simply said, "I have 10 kids.  This will be gone before the week is out."  I love clearance items!

WARNING: Bags for sale!

One thing about Hungary is that almost no stores give out bags with their groceries.  You can purchase them for above the price of your groceries, but very few stores give them to you gratis.

Now, this may be an environmentalists dream, but can pose some problems if you don't bring enough backpacks and bags for yourself :).

So, the other day at the market, when a woman offered to sell me a bag, I considered it.  I had (as always) misjudged how much space I needed for the things I was buying and was a little short of backpack space.

"Mennyibe kerul ez?" I asked. ("How much is it?")

Her answer had something to do with "8" (I have a hard time transitioning from words to numbers), and I thought, "Oh, 80 forint.  That's not bad." (It's a little less than 40 cents.)

It turned out to be 800 forint...$4.00!  And it was like the plastic bags you pick up at Macey's, that gather in your closet until you run out of space and have to run them down to the Walmart to recycle them, if you can't use them fast enough,...not even a cloth one!

I was too shocked to try and think of the Hungarian I needed to say, "NO WAY AM I GOING TO BUY A BAG FOR $4!", but let me tell you, I sure figured out what I would do next time that happened!

Live and learn. 

Church/Missionaries, School challenges, and Shopping trips

Today in church, in the middle of the quiet of the sacrament, Hava said loudly, "I love Ice Age!"  Sweet.  We had rented the movie last night, and, apparently, she was thinking of that and not "sacrament-ish" stuff.  The missionaries sitting across the aisle loved it.

Apparently, we are not doing just damage in the ward, though :).  When the missionaries came for dinner (tacos!) last Friday, with a sweet message and a fun game, they mentioned that a young lady who will be baptized next Friday sat behind us and commented on the love we were showing each other at church.  She said it was wonderful to see what blessings the gospel brings to families, even when we have a bunch of kids.  Whew!

[The game, RaNae, is when someone holds a cup and a very small spoon---like 1/8th of a teaspoon---and stands in the middle of a circle of people and they go around and ask each person: "Birdie, Birdie, what's my color?"  If the person says the color that the person in the middle is thinking about, the person in the middle throws the small bit of water onto them, and then the now-wet person gets to be in the middle.  You can use this game for a "get-to-know-you" game by using other things to ask,...not just colors.]

I am a little busy and tired with doing all the school for the week.  It is good stuff, but I guess I get worried about making sure I am doing it on time and making it worthwhile.  The kids are thrilled, though, and enjoying it a lot.  Chugger-dude cannot wait until we start Cub Scouts next Tuesday.  Yesterday was spent trying to clean up the house.  I came up with a sweet deal!  Q-dawg took all the kids except Spooner to the store to buy groceries for the week, and I stayed back with Spooner and super-cleaned the house.  I loved it!  I got to defrost the freezer (bang out the ice), and clean up yet another spill in the fridge (yummy) in addition to mopping, vacuuming and bathroom stuff...woohoo!

I posted on my Lazarus blog about the value of "being alone with God," as Elder Uchtdorf puts it.  I had an interesting moment this week with regards to this concept.  I was changing Papaya's diaper right before quiet time and she was screaming, Hava was laying on the bed next to us, glaring at me ferociously as only Hava can glare, and I thought, "I wonder if I could be 'alone with God' right now?"  Such a feeling of peace and calm swept over me, and I felt like I could step back from the frustration of the moment and truly feel alone with Him.  Quietly humming, I went back to work :).  The diaper got on, both girls were still fussy and mad at me for a while, but I felt such peace!  Now, to be able to do that more :)...

I told Avot we needed another picture of her working her magic with Spooner

Then, everyone else needed to pose :)...here is the Goob, eating left-overs for lunch, one of our favorites.  This is Daddy's Rice, which is bearable, reheated.  One thing Q-dawg and I don't get is when the kids will stomach re-heated "porridge," or cream of wheat (aka gruel).

Here's Chugger-dude modeling the porridge :)

Liliputian and one of the giant pancakes Avot makes for us

Capturing smiles

Papaya accompanied Q-dawg on his dry-run to our new Erd branch.   They missed the transfer--there is only an 8 minute window between one bus and another, and it is over an over-pass, two parking lots and two streets.  We'll see if we can get that week after week :)

Lek's tower that he built for a Synergy of the Mind project for Vanguard this week (Avot's crashed before we got a picture of it, because she had finished hers earlier and already tested it.  When Lek found out she got to eat what her contraption held, he put his heart and soul into making a good one :)...I ran out of treats to fill it, as you will see.)

The original testing container proved too small...

Next biggest bowl...

Super-sized...and it still holds!  There is no way I am filling this one, but it was cool to see :)

The kids on the way to the store with Q-dawg

This route goes over an old bridge

Liliputian models how windy it was for them :)

It looks a lot more solid than it feels

And here is the drop beneath the bridge,...Lek helping Q-dawg doing one of his great shots :)

That bridge in the background is the one they went across.  Apparently it has some history having to do with a Turkish invasion, but we need to learn more about it :).

Here they are on the way back, backpacks all filled with the booty!  The bridges are in the background--this is the area you saw behind Lek when he was leaning over backwards

Q-dawg and I love these homes so full of personality!

Here are the kids at the soccer field that Q-dawg found...they go every day!

Chugger-dude loves playing goalie!  We watched a bunch of cool goalie saves on youtube after they got home, and Chugger-dude kept saying: "That's just like me!"

We did our first week of rehearsals for Romeo and Juliet, although Q-dawg calls it "Ro-MAY-o and Juli-IT."  I don't think so!  The kids are all excited because each one of them plays more than one part, so everyone (except Liliputian) gets to die as at least one of their characters. (Q-dawg gets to die twice!)

Pipalicious and Hava are good at saying "Down with Capulets! Down with Montagues!"...their only lines so far :).  Lek plays RoMAYo and his father...one of the trickier trades.  Interesting that they are never on stage at the same time--maybe that is on of Romeo's problems...lack of a father figure :).

Resting up? Hahahahahaha....

Life with mom in bed:

It all began with two 5 hour trips into Budapest (love public transportation!) for jaundice tests for Spooner, one on Wednesday, one on Thursday.  Heavenly Father blessed both Spooner and me: Spooner so he wouldn’t get sick being out and about, and me with continued healing in spite of walking and being up and about for the trips.

Come Friday, I’m feeling great, so I start doing a little more around the house.  I love order and straightening when I can, so I just did a little here, a little there, sat up more than laid down—that kind of thing.  Well, I over-did it and was in bed again all day Saturday and am back in bed this beautiful Sunday morning.

What fun for everyone else!

For instance, yesterday:

-Q-dawg did one of his least favorite things in the world, next to cleaning up vomit: Christmas shopping…without me.  I gave him a list of ideas, and he and Lek went off to conquer.  I think it is just painful for him, as a man, to see the hard-earned money be spent...even though he sees that there is a time and a place for it.  It is just hard to see it happen, I think :).

-Meanwhile, as they were gone later and later, I realized the last thing Q-dawg would want to do when he got home was go grocery shopping for the week, so Avot graciously and happily consented to do it for him.  She has only been once before, helping Q-dawg last week, and, not only did she get everything, she even spoke Hungarian to someone to ask where the baking cocoa was, and was understood and helped!  I guess when chocolate is on the line, she is willing to go outside of her comfort zone :).  Brownies, here we come!

-Avot had taken Chugger-dude, the Goob, and Liliputian with her to help, so I was here “resting” with Spooner, Papaya, Hava, and Pipalicious.  Pipalicious turned off all the lights in the rest of the house (Spooner and I were hanging out in my room—the warmest room in the house), and built barricades across the doorways with all the coats, blankets, and pillows she could find, even covering some of the doorways with sheets held up with books on either side as a screen.  Ingenius :).  She and Hava ran around for a while before I asked them to start cleaning up, just in case everyone got home soon.  They did a marvelous job, too!  I was so impressed!

-Dinner?  Hmmmm…Q-dawg still gone (since around 15:00, I think it was, poor chap), Avot and crew just getting home at around 20:00….let’s have some dinner!  Fortunately, the three ladies that brought food this week brought enough for several meals, so we heated up some soup from one meal, pulled out the salad from another, and then opened the bread Avot had just purchased to go with it.  Voila!

-Q-dawg and some of the kids had purchased the Christmas tree earlier that day, and it was sitting, thawing in our cellar.   After getting  home 30 minutes after dinner started, Q-dawg and Lek threw down some dinner (what was left of it) and headed down to cut off an inch of the bottom off the tree—a process that ended up taking almost an hour with the blunt saw we found on the property.  Lek ended up whacking off the end with a hammer, “a great way to vent my frustrations at the sawing, mom!” he excitedly told me later :).

-Christmas tree upstairs…time to rig it up!  Needless to say, by the time they were done, it was about 22:30, and when Q-dawg noticed the time 15 minutes later, it was a quick, “bedtime, now!” and off to bed!

Q-dawg strung up three cords to keep the tree upright :)

Avot strung popcorn on strings the next day to add to it...Papaya and Hava haven't eaten too many of them :)

Next morning, I lazily lingered in bed, listening to the prep for Sunday, until:

-No breakfast is ready…Avot is busy washing the last pan of dinners from Church members so they can take it with them to church…eat whatever is there!  More leftovers of the rakot krumpli we have been eating once or twice a day for four days now?  Tempting…

-Q-dawg comes in and lovingly whispers:  “Hava wet the bed, so there is a big soaked spot on the couch-bed.  She also in the meantime had an accident on the floor of the bathroom, so it is covered.  Only four of us have eaten anything, and we have 15 minutes before we need to go.  What do you want me to do?”  Okay, maybe there was a hint of frustration and exasperation mingled in the 'loving whisper.'  “Where is Hava now?” I asked.  “Standing in the bathtub in her soaked pajamas.”  Hmmm…make the call for me :)?  He offered to stay home, not wanting to leave me like this, wanting me to rest, and said he could send Avot with some other kids to church.  Sigh…I can get up.

Since he has gone, the excitement with the stay-at-home sickies has not died down (Pipalicious, the Goob, and, dum, dum, dum... Papaya!):

-Dishes still piled up.

-Floor in bathroom mopped, laundry going, bed cleaned, room aired out.

-Papaya found the left out cinnamon syrup while the Goob, Pipalicious, Spooner and I were having church on our own in the warm room…use your imagination, and then probably add more stickiness and spread it over two rooms.  The Goob was a saint and is now on his second mopping, finding the first mopping left it sticky.  Saint.

-Tender mercy?  After all the showers and clean-up this morning, there was still hot water for my shower.

Christmas decorating, chiselling, and laundry

For the kids, I'll put in a little to keep up with their journals...

Avot helped me put up the real mistletoe I bought at a cute little house-store today when looking for Christmas decorations.  There is something so cheery about decorations.  Hava, Papaya and I picked out a live wreath and some ornamentation to go on it.  The kids spent a long time evading/chasing each other through the doorways with mistletoe over them.  What fun!  I also picked up a poinsetta and some ribbon to drape around a bit...just a little something to add the Christmas cheer.

We saw some artificial trees in some stores, but I haven't found out if they do live Christmas tree lots, which is Q-dawg's preference.  We have been listening to the music, but, somehow, without the decorations, it feels a little different :).  I've been spoiled, I guess.

The boys and Pipalicious have been busy most of the morning and afternoon playing steal-sticks and carving images out of some random blocks of rock we have in our backyard.  I took the little girls on a walk to the park, going "shopping" for little baby clothes.  Now I have three onesies and three jammie/sleepers.  That should be enough for at least a few days, right? :)  That was when we picked up the Christmas stuff, which was fun.  The girls and I had fun at the park and it was fun to have some "littles" time together.

The weather today was amazing, so I hurried and got our next batch of laundry on.  I actually got to the point where I don't have a single complete load I could run!  I know, it won't last, and I am sure I will have three at a time later, but good news for now!  They were actually done within five hours, and smelled delightful, like sunshine and wind.  We aired out the house, too, which is always good :).

Lek cooked up another pie last night, apple this time, and it was amazing....again. We finally have this oven figured out with pies, I think.  Thanksgiving was quite the adventure and very traumatic, although we did have yummy, Thanksgiving-ish type food come out at the end.  I will post more on it when I am able to face it and the pictures of the disasters and successes.  I was ready to go to bed half-way through, even with all my awesome kitchen crew, ready to throw in the towel, but...it gives me stress just thinking about it, so I will save that for later :)...

Q-dawg is crazy busy with orders for appraising, which is wonderful.  I keep thinking about all the great reasons for not having the baby right now, you know, thinking positive, but here we are.  I think the kids have given up asking me if the baby is coming today.

Good news, though!  My brother and his sweet wife just welcomed their little boy into the world!  He is soooooo adorable, but they have always had the most adorable children...and they grow up adorable, too.  Big blue eyes, angelic faces...well, alright.  Their oldest is maturing into manhood, so maybe not angelic anymore, but still very good-looking.  I had some sympathy contractions, but that was it.  Woohoo.

The Goob told me that he wants to design video games, because then he can do video games about all the things he is interested and he won't be limited by the parameters of the real world.  I love to hear them plan and become!  Liliputian is working on crocheting a blanket for the baby, but is frustrated at trying to double crochet to make it softer.  It is just a little tricky, and I wasn't able to sit by her and do it with her like she wanted...Avot had asked me to sing with her while she played the violin to practice playing harmony while people sang.  Fun!

Chugger-dude is just as sensitive as always, but is always good for a snuggle.  I love watching him curl up in his daddy's lap at night while Q-dawg leads us in our Hungarian/English scripture reading and then reads "The Chosen" to us.  We have started singing Hungarian hymns at night, too, and it is cool to hear our family all singing together.  When the older boys forget that it is "not cool" to sing, they can really sing well, and we get some good sound in our "echoe-y" room :).  Sadly, the best, most enjoyable times at night for me are when Papaya goes to sleep before we have scripture time :S...she is so crazy!  I keep trying to tell the kids to not get her all riled up, but it is like their little "break" and each one feels compelled to do it at least once.

Lek is cooking spaghetti and breadsticks around me.  He has decided that he wants his area of stewardship to be cooking dinner, and I am all for that :).  Cook away!  He takes delight in it, too, and it is fun seeing him gain confidence while doing it. 

Oh!  Fun thing today: since we moved in, every few days, Q-dawg would be haunted by an annoyance from the street.  Imagine the ice cream man camping outside your window, cranking up his volume and playing the same song again and again for twenty minutes before moving on.   A little irritating?  Well, we found out that it was a milk delivery man, who sell raw milk for only 200 forint a L, which is about what we are paying for milk on sale at our local market.  Heaven knows we go through it plenty fast, and, if we don't drink it before the 4 day limit, we can make it into buttermilk or yogurt (although I need to get a recipe).  This way I don't have to take up a third of my grocery "load" with milk for my family on the weekly trip to the market.  (Although, last time, when I took Liliputian and younger on the 1.3 mile one-way trip to the market, I used one of the cool carry-on roller "suitcases" and that gave me a whole additional container!  So smart, pregnant woman!  Side note: we also picked up a bag of chocolate milk--their milk is most often sold in bags and boxes--and I had the kids all sitting on a park bench on a break on the way home, with me holding up the bag to their lips to drink, taking turns drinking.  I felt like a mother cow with a removable udder feeding a bunch of baby calves :).  Of course, Jackie may laugh at that with all her "live cow" experience, but it must have been quite a sight to people walking by :)...crazy Americans.)

I am too tired to go back and review this entry, so hopefully it makes sense and doesn't have too many errors.  It turned out longer than I planned, but I do like to try and capture the little things that I think will be there forever, but which, I have learned all too painfully, can be gone so fleetingly.  Hurrah for the blessings and the frustrations of each moment!

Shopping blues

Alright, so one thing I miss is our van...for one reason only.

I don't miss driving (haven't enjoyed that for years), don't miss spending $120 to fill it up with gas, don't miss wondering if it is going to start one more time or get me one last place (although that was pretty exciting at times :)...).

I miss being able to put all my groceries in it and not have to worry about how I am getting it home :).

I thought about this yesterday as, walking with a full backpack, full stroller (no child in it), and bags draped on the side of it, I pushed it uphill to get to the bus-stop.  I thought about it as I pushed that same stroller-full up and down the street looking for the elusive bus-stop, cursing the fact that I had done the research for this particular bus-trip, and not Q-dawg, the expert.  Unlike his research, mine was a little full of holes :S.

I thought about it as we finally found the bus we wanted (the last of two we could get) at a stop that was not marked for pick-up for that route (if that makes any sense), hurried to get to it, pushed the stroller on into a mass of standing people.  Standing-room only,...sweet.

I thought about it as we stopped three more times in front of masses of swarming students and they tried to squeeze themselves on like sardines all around my full stroller and my pregnant loaded self.  Apparently, when they say this is a "bus route for school hours" that is exactly what it means, and the students use it to get home...and don't care how squishy it gets :).

I thought about it as the aroma around me smelled more and more like boys without deodorant, as we all hung on tightly to the hand holds overhead as the bus swerved around the round-abouts, and I tried to wedge my feet around the bottom of the stroller so it wouldn't topple or careen into some unwary student around me.

I thought about it as we pushed the stroller home, having made it to our bus-stop, and gotten off, and realized...I need to do this again in a few days :).

Needless to say, shopping for 10 people with a backpack and a stroller has been great for my keeping in shape.  The grocery store in our new town is twice as far as in Pécel (a little over a mile, I think), and down a big hill and up another, although the route is pretty :).  Even though I am going more often to the store, I don't think my spending has gone up (except for Milka chocolate bars--the baby really likes those, and they don't take up much space), because I always have to think about how I am going to get all that food home.  It's amazing how that can curb a person's spending.

Unfortunately, I am in nesting/stock-up mode, and want to make sure I don't leave my kids (who will already be at the home alone for quite a while when I have a baby) with no food :S.  They have a few meals for "treats" (frozen cordon blue and cold cereal), but the basics for everything else need to be here...we can't just buy for the week like we were, just in case I have the baby at the end of that time period and the food is gone.  Fun challenge!

The bus route is a little more of an out-of-the-ordinary experience--we were also picking up two "smoking/coffee" type tables to put together for our table and 10 cushions so we can sit on them an eat eastern style. (Pictures to come!  This pregnant body sighed and gave up when I saw that I would have to get out of my chair, crawl on the floor on hands and knees to get to the back of the computer to insert the SD card with pictures...sorry, mom and dad!  I can do it later when I have the laptop, and can sit and insert it.  Lazy, I know :)...) Normally, I will just walk to one of the two stores that I mentioned were a little over a mile away.

Nothing really comes in bulk in the stores I have found, although, at the store by the cushion/coffee table store, I found a flour bag that was actually 5 kg! (That's about 15 lbs.)  The most I could find before was 2 kg at a time.  Although it is great that we can burn all the packaging for the smaller things, it makes it trickier to transport everything.  We have to buy our milk and juice by the liter (picture to come of our fridge), and a family of 10 goes through 2 liters of milk (if we each just get under a cup in one meal...imagine that, Mark and Adam :)!).  Hence, the full fridge.  I panic, at this stage of pregnancy, when I only see a couple liters of milk and a liter of juice in the fridge.   Lek helped me feel better today when he said that he could run to the market for me if I was gone and they ran out.  Whew.

Oh, note about the cushions...at the store, they had a pretty "natural" tan-ish color and then vivid red.  I really wanted to get the natural, but thoughts of spaghetti, punch and chili spills just wouldn't leave my mind.  I sighed and loaded up 10 bright red cushions into the stroller.  Q-dawg was equally reluctant when he saw the blood-red stack, but, upon hearing my reasoning, agreed with my decision.

One other thing we did buy this week and that Q-dawg and I won't have to carry is our (drumroll, please...) brand new washing machine!!!  Woohoo!  It is being delivered tomorrow between 11 and 1 pm, and I am sooooooo excited.  It holds 6 kg, unlike most of the 5 kg ones we looked at, and was just around $300 (30% off it's usual $450 price).  At first, I was just holding off on doing laundry until I got it, but then, looking at our one pathetic clothes rack, realized that I should get some going a little earlier tonight to get it drying before we get the machine to wash the rest.  Fortunately, our cellar is very warm and dry--the perfect place for drying clothes, so hopefully the clothes should dry quickly.  It will help that the washing machine will be able to spin them drier than my arms can squeeze.  Although all the squeezing has been great for the muscles on my upper arm (they look the best they have in years!), by the end of a batch, my wringing is pretty pathetic.

The laundry went well, though...I have a bathtub to do it in.  Woohoo!  It was so nice!  I just need to find out what the Hungarian word for "bleach" is to try and save some of our pathetic used-to-be white socks.  Everything else seems to be getting nice and clean with this method.  I do find it hard, though, to sit and scrub dirt-stained socks when there are gaping holes in the bottom.  Kids can really be hard on socks, and it's hard to know when "wear it up, use it out, make it do, or do without"has it's limits :).