Welcome to Mt. Laundry

In my house, there is one word that is not allowed. We don’t say it, we don’t think about it, we don’t even acknowledge its existence…. Laundry. The most hated chore in my life. I will sweep the floors, scrub the toilets, wash the dishes, and even rake the yard all day long and not complain. BUT the moment someone informs me they want a certain hoodie washed or they need clean pants, I’m done.

I haven’t always hated doing laundry. I used to love putting my smelly clothes in the washer and watching them come out smelling great. But then along came the kids. Stinky kids. Dirty kids. Boy kids. Kids that change 5 and 6 times a day. And the laundry pile turned into a laundry mountain. Yall this mountain never ends!

I can wash three loads a day (which doesn’t really happen often because my poor washer would just die) and make a good size dent in this mountain. But then when I walk into another room you’ll never guess what I find there! That’s right. A pile of dirty clothes that needs to be added to the never-ending mountain. I walk from room to room gathering smelly underwear, grass-stained pants, lonely unmatched socks, and last season’s clothes that didn’t get put away and add them to the ever-growing mound. Just when I think I’ve gotten all the dirty clothes in one pile, I stumble across yet another dirty little sock or uncover a dusty jacket in the bottom of a bookbag. The previous dent I had made in the mountain is now filled back in with the new stink I’ve found in all the other rooms. It’s like this chore never ends.

Then comes sheet day. You know that point where you just have to change the sheets because you’re tired of feeling dirt and crumbs under your legs all night? Or your kid had too much milk before bed and forgot how to get up so they just peed in the bed instead? So now you have to strip the sheets, strip the pillowcases, strip the blankets and add them to the now gargantuaous pile. And you can’t just throw a wad of sheets and blankets in the washer like you do clothes. No, you have to wash these dang things one at a time and that sets your washing schedule back even more.
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And don’t even get me started on what happens after the laundry is cleaned. So now this mountain that I swear I’m constantly digging into is clean (even though you can’t tell from the amount of clothes still dirty) and what happens next? Well, normally a more accomplished person would immediately sort, fold, and put it all away right? Absolutely not!! Sorting laundry in my house of 5 boys and one girl is like one of those never-ending matching games. They are all like one size apart so you can’t just glance and say “hey that shirt is smaller so it goes in Cooper’s pile.” No, you have to look at every single tag and see if it’s a 10 or a 12 or a 5t or 3t or a 2t. This takes your twenty minutes sort time to at least 45 minutes. And being the procrastinator I am, I don’t sort laundry but once every week. So let’s do the math. I wash two LARGE loads a day, seven days a week. That equals 14 loads (more like 20 if you see how much I cram into a load) that have to be looked at and sorted through. This is an entire day’s work.

I dump all 70 pounds of clothes out on my bed (this is to make sure I don’t give up halfway through. If I don’t get it sorted, I don’t have a bed.) I then proceed to sort through it. 6 kids, my hang-up clothes, my dresser clothes, Marc’s clothes, bathroom towels, kitchen towels, socks, etc. Then I have all these piles of clothes that have to be put away. Their dressers are of course packed already, so I have to squish and squeeze like a fat lady trying to get into some skinny jeans just to make these clothes fit. THEN the process starts all over again. Wash more laundry, sort more laundry. It’s a vicious cycle.

Now, this is just the clothes and towels….those dreaded socks…well we don’t talk about socks no, no, no (see that play on We Don’t Talk About Bruno I just made there). As laundry is sorted, the socks go into a basket of mismatched socks (most of which will never see their mate again) and that is where they stay until we have absolutely no socks left in the house.

A normal person would say to me “Becca why don’t you just sort laundry when it’s clean to stay caught up?” Wellllll gee Karen let me think about it. If I spent my entire day washing laundry, sorting laundry, folding laundry, putting away laundry; then who would play with my wild little monsters while I chored away? Who would cook dinner or help with homework? See laundry is not a life or death situation. It’s really optional. I don’t mind being naked at all, but society looks down on that for some reason? But the point is, there are more important things in my life right now than worrying about laundry. It can wait, my kids, however, well they’re pretty impatient.