Laundry

Blech. I HATE doing laundry. With a family of 5 it piles up quickly so there's no way to get around it. I have to admit I can go quite a while, though! Over the years I have purchased enough clothing so that we can go a good long time between rounds.

When we are absolutely out of clean clothes, here's how it works. The kids take off their dirty clothes every night and throw them on the floor. When I'm ready to sort clothes I yell at them to pick everything up and bring it to my bathroom where I have about 10 laundry baskets all spread out. They either ignore me completely (it's amazing how The Youngest, aka The Wild Child, always has to use the potty for a good long time right when I need him to do something, but there it is) or pick up just a few things and say they are done. In exasperation, and maybe a little desperation, I go to their rooms and stand outside their doors (the younger two have rooms right next to each other) and point out what they've missed, which I can clearly see from the doorway. I never actually enter The Middle Child's room since it's hazardous. The Youngest's room isn't as bad since I cleaned it up a few weeks ago so I can go in there without risking life and limb, which I do, and round up any clothes I can find. (The Eldest is supposed to wash her own clothes in theory, but she manages to sneak her stuff into my stuff when I'm not looking.)

Then the sorting. Oh, the sorting! I have to check every pocket for foreign objects (you can ask my mom about the crayon my brother left in a pocket when we were kids; I've never forgotten that lesson!) and button and zip every pair of pants. See, open zippers ruin your clothes when the teeth rub against fabric in the washer, or so I've read. The rest is pretty easy, washer to dryer, until the folding and putting away. That's where I stall out. I use separate baskets for dirty vs. clean clothes due to pinworms (we had an outbreak several years ago; I cleared them up quickly and I think it's because I don't put clean clothes in the same baskets that hold dirty clothes- that's how those critters keep reinfecting people, I'm convinced) and I've limited myself to four of them. Clean baskets, that is. So I can only have four baskets of clean clothes sitting around at once. Can't do anymore laundry until I have some clean baskets empty! Luckily DH and The Middle Child help out with the folding every now and again 'cause I HATE that part. ~:-P

So anyway, that's what I've been up to lately. Laundry. Lots and lots of laundry. I finished almost all of the clothes and I'm down to three very large loads of towels and some sheets. Woohoo!