Oh! Sweet Mystery of Laundry, At Last, I Found You!



My older sister Jamie told me when I was deep into my second pregnancy, "For me, two wasn't that much harder than one. The biggest difference was laundry."

"Laundry?" I asked. Not juggling feeding or nap schedules or where to put two small people when attempting a grocery store?

"Yes," she said. "One kid's laundry didn't feel like more than when it was just me and Jeff. But with a second kid, it was like the laundry multiplied. Exponentially. I have no idea why, but I was constantly drowning in it."

Huh.

And so, when Daphne arrived along with all her darling little onesies, I watched to see if the Laundry thing would be true for me.

It started small - just a bit of bewilderment at the amount of laundry my family now accumulated. I had a small mountain of burp cloths - yet I always seemed to run out of them after two days and had to rush an emergency load of laundry through between the usual piles and loads.

Then it began to grow. Gradually, the piles and demand seemed to steadily increase. When Henry joined the clan and offered his soiled contributions, I really understood what being 'swamped by laundry' felt like.

It seemed to me that it crawled into every corner of the house to lie down and die. I would find laundry everywhere. I'd run six loads through the machines in a day - and still, at bedtime when I made the rounds, there was another entire basket full of dirties that I could collect from hiding places.

When did it get so hard to keep on top of it? And if I missed a day - forget it. The laundry would eat me alive.

Then, today, performing a military precision search to gather kid clothes from all around the house in an effort to run a few loads without the aggravation of missing socks - I realized something.

Bill and I both wear the same pants for a few days. Use the same towel for a few days. Don't generally have to change our clothes after playing outside, eating an ice cream cone, or "leaking".

Comparatively speaking, we go through like...NO LAUNDRY AT ALL! In fact - we could get by with running one load of darks and one load of whites per week.

THe kids?

After one week - they've got three or four full loads to run.


I know this isn't rocket science, but it still rocked my world. Finally, I felt like I understood the madness. It's not that the clothing jumps out of their drawers into the dirty laundry pile. It's that my kids are wonderfully messy. They get more messy before they get less (still waiting for the less). And when they are enjoying a popsicle outside, they only have eyes for that sticky sweet treat - no regard at all for preserving the cute blue and white striped nautical T their mother so lovingly put them in that morning.

I never stood a chance.

And for some reason - that is incredibly comforting.

"Get up, Mom!"
"Can't. Laundry got me."




2 comments:

Kalli said...

This yes, this I agree with wholeheartedly.

P.S. I think you know my friend, Kim Perry Parry. She's a gem that one.

Kristen said...

My laundry used to be under control with 2 kids. But adding this baby? Who either pees or spits up on at least 2 outfits and blankets a day? I'm doing a batch of laundry every day. And still can't keep up.

Good thing we love these mess-making kiddos, eh??