With the terrorists ranging in age from 1 to 9 right now, I simply cannot imagine what life is going to be like in about 5 years, with adult-sized clothes to wash. For real... it blows my mind.
I was out of laundry detergent last week for about 2 days. It's almost like a forced vacation. Does anyone else get that feeling? The baby drips milk all over her bed, creating tiny milk bombs with her tiny terrorist hands... too bad! Can't wash it. There's a booger on a blanket? Oh well, just throw it on the laundry room floor!
It's sort of a surreal feeling.
The problem is, with 6 people getting clothes dirty every day, once you stop for a couple days, it's hard to get back into the swing of things. It's like missing the gym for a week and then trying to force your butt back onto the treadmill.
Yuck.
I've read all sorts of blogs about how to make laundry... [gulp]... "enjoyable".
No matter how many times I watch it, I cannot figure out how to fold a fitted sheet.
And no, I don't iron. Anything. Period. If I can't spray God's gift to mothers (otherwise known as Downy Wrinkle Release) on it to fix it, then it's going to find itself in a donation bag rather quickly. I can be a Laundry Ninja at times, grabbing things out of the dryer right at the exact moment before wrinkles set in. Chances are, though, that it's going to sit there for an hour... or a day... and there's going to be wrinkles.
Due to the above, I love synthetic fabrics. Yep, shoot me.
Note for the record, my mom would iron my t-shirts. She still routinely strips my children at her house to iron their clothes.
Just. Because. She. Can.
I cannot allow my children to wash or fold or put their own clothing away yet. They are still too little to manage all of that... or at least, they pretend to be.
I have let go of so much of my OCD since having children, yet the one thing that still drives me crazy is messy drawers. One blogger said to just relinquish control to the terrorists. If they want messy drawers, then let them do it. We tried it for a couple weeks, but I cracked. None of my children folded their clothes, so each one just had wads of clothing crumpled up in their drawers. No one could close them. No one could find anything. It was awful. I resumed folding and putting away duties.
I still threaten to make them fold and put their own clothes away once a week, as I have to re-fold half the drawer just to add new laundry to it. They probably know I'm bluffing though.
So it goes.
My 9-year old and my 6-year old boys are wearing almost the same sizes. One thing that has really simplified my life, which came from the same blog that said to let the kids put their own clothes away, is to wash everyone's clothes separately. That's right. One person at a time. Now, granted, my husband and I share a basket so I wash ours together. But for the kids, only one kid at a time. That means when it comes to folding, there's no sorting! You can turn on auto-pilot and fold away, not having to figure out whose shirt is whose, or whose socks are whose.
In order to do one person at a time, you do have to let go of some things. I literally dump the whole hamper in at once. That means, everything is going in the same water temp and the same cycle. Of course, there are always going to be things that need separate stain treating or maybe bleach, but for the most part, if it doesn't all go together, then it can't handle being in my house.
I'm sure this would make my mom shudder. No cycle of darks. No cycle of lights. No cycle of whites. No cycle of just kitchen towels (yes, she does that).
I do have hot water loads with towels and such, but the kids pretty much get cold water, and that's it.
You do have to make sure that there's a good 10 or so days worth of clothing for each child, at least when they are little. It takes at least a week to fill up a load, so I only wash their clothes once a week. I'm guessing this will be twice a week once they get older, but then it will become their own chore... and I'll pick up some hobbies.
Reading.
Knitting.
Watching Felicity re-runs.
Let's be honest. I am no laundry expert. If some stain treating doesn't work, it's going to either end up in the trash or be declared "play clothes". I am not one to get super-creative in order to make a pair of baseball pants look like new.
And most of the time, the clean clothes stay in the hamper in my bedroom... until it's time to wash the next load.
So, if you see a kid with permanent dirt stains on their white baseball pants, think of me. That might be my kid. Keep in mind, though, I washed them at least twice and stain treated them.
Did I bother with bleach? Probably not.
Say a prayer for me,
Kristin
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