The past two and a half weeks have been full of hand washing dishes around here. You see, the dishwasher died. Now, we rent, so it was the landlord’s problem to handle, but that didn’t make things all that much easier; it just meant it wasn’t my money going into the problem. Anyhow, it came up too expensive to fix, so a new dishwasher has been installed… to my children’s great relief. They learned quite a lesson from not having a dishwasher for a time.

I’ll admit that the mean mommy part of me enjoyed their discomfort. The kids swear they’ll never complain about having to load and unload the dishwasher again. I don’t believe that for a minute, but I do wonder if I can get them to behave about doing the dishes better if I take away their dishwasher privilege. I really don’t think they will want to go back to handwashing so many dishes in the future.

I wasn’t even been nice enough to let them switch to disposable dishes. Actually, I don’t think the thought even occurred to them, or if it did, they never suggested it to me. I use disposable dishes very rarely, usually only when there’s more company than my supply of dishes can handle. I’m very much against that kind of waste when I have a choice.

I hope the kids have also picked up on the notion that the fewer dishes they use, the fewer there are to clean up later. We’ve tried to get this lesson across before, but it has never taken, especially in regards to cups that only held water when they want more water. After hand washing so many cups… maybe? We’ll see.

I’m really glad to have a dishwasher again. This was a long time to go without, and hand washing uses more water, especially when it’s kids doing the dishes. Bit by bit they’ve learned to be more efficient, especially when rinsing, but they still aren’t all that efficient about it.

Of course, now I’m waiting for the garbage disposal to be replaced. It just had to start leaking rusty water the day before the dishwasher was installed. At least that meant it was easy to have the guy take a look and confirm that it can’t be repaired – now I just need to see how long it takes to get this job done!