Sometimes I forget that there are other rooms in my house.
Most days, I feel like I live in the laundry room. With two adults, three active little girls and one very messy baby boy contributing to the “to-be-washed” pile, I might as well just pull a cot in there and call it a night.
There’s no room for an extra bed there, though. Extra things go in there. I don’t mean for them to go there – they just do. They gravitate there.
The nice long countertop is never available for folding purposes. It’s always full of tote bags, swimsuits, birthday presents, wrapping paper, cleaning supplies, umbrellas, crates full of Play-doh, an Easy Bake Oven, a plastic kite and umpteen other things that don’t have a real “home” in my home.
Sure, I clean it out now and then, but somehow the laundry room remains a magnet for all things random.
Even when you don’t have much space, or even a designated laundry room, there are still many ways to do laundry. Some people do a load or two every day. Some have a designated “laundry day,” when they lug everything into the laundry room. Some leave it going all the time, choosing to live in laundry limbo, with clothes piled in bins or hanging on various racks all over the place.
I, for one, have a system.
Five baskets: one for each child, one for grown-ups. This is my sorting mantra: “Sadie, Adelaide, Josie, grown-up, baby, grown-up, Josie, Sadie, grown-up, Adelaide, baby, grown-up.” (I’ve been known to wake myself up from a sound sleep while muttering this strange incantation.)
My children know that there is always laundry to do. I usually have one load in the washer, one in the dryer and one in the laundry room sink (basically a holding cell for all the dirty clothes I can’t stuff into the washer). Sometimes the kids help while standing on a little blue step-stool (Josie especially loves to put in detergent; Adelaide likes to help move wet loads from the washer to the dryer.)
They seem to want to help me conquer the summit of Mount Laundry. I am suspicious though. I think they just hang around until they see me pulling the warm clean stuff out of the dryer. They immediately confiscate the toasty sheets so they can wrap themselves up like mummies and relax in the laundry basket.
They do help fold and put away, though. I’ve labeled all their dresser drawers so they can remember what goes where. Sadie brings the upstairs hamper down every morning as one of her regular chores. Adelaide and Josie argue over who gets to fold the towels – kitchen towels are a hot commodity in the laundry business. Even with help, though, the summit seems unreachable.
So I say to myself, “Self, how do I down-size this mountain?” Then I answer myself with increasingly ridiculous ideas.
Maybe I should set my standards a little bit lower: It doesn’t matter if there’s ketchup on that pink T-shirt. Red and pink are in the same color family! Wear it one more time.
Maybe I should try to develop a higher dirt tolerance: It doesn’t matter if there is mud on the knees of those jeans. Brown is in this season. Wear it one more time.
Maybe I should worry less about comfort: It doesn’t matter if your socks feel crunchy. They look fine. Wear them one more time.
Or smell: I can’t smell you from over here. Oh, wait. Stand downwind. That’s better. Yeah, we can get one more day out of that.
I have a system. I didn’t say that it worked – just that I have one. I guess it will be a while before we plant the victorious laundry flag on the top of this particular mountain.
-from my article for www.mentorpatch.com on 9/11/11
