Thursday, March 27, 2008

Dirty Laundry



Confession time...are you ready? I hate doing laundry. And it hates me. I can't seem to ever get to the bottom of our giant McBride Family Laundry Hamper. I thought by consolidating our family's laundry into one hamper that it would somehow help me keep tabs on the laundry situation, but no dice. The pile in the hamper just seems to stay at about the same level no matter how much I slave away at my two nemeses: the washing machine and the dryer. Why do I hate doing laundry? In these modern times of indoor plumbing and Downy balls, it is like the easiest thing in the world to do. It's almost space age, like a flying car or something...just throw in some dirty clothes with a little magic powder, push a button and, forty minutes later you have clean clothes! I remember my mom telling me a story about a friend of her mother's who was the first person my mom ever met who owned a dishwasher. My mom and her mother stood in this woman's kitchen as she walked them through the process of loading the dishes, pouring in the soap and voila! Clean dishes. "You still have to put them away though," my grandmother's friend sighed. And that's the thing with laundry that I have the biggest problem with. The putting away part. The putting away part generally drags on way too long at my house. It can go on until there is a new week's worth of laundry to put away or until a guest comes over who might venture deep enough into our house to witness my piles of laundry. Guests are great motivators to me. Guests to my house probably think I am the type of person who puts her laundry away...and puts the newspapers in the recycling bin before they have somehow piled up to be taller than Charlie...and vacuums the horrible place under the table where the kids eat their meals. I have everyone fooled!

While we're on the subject of things that get on my nerves, does anyone else with young children get sick of constantly feeding them, or is it just me? It's been about 4 1/2 years of being a mom and I am still amazed at the amount of time I spend doling out food, cleaning up food off the floor and table, washing dishes, going to the grocery store for more food and washing the food stains off of clothes. I'm not even counting all the time I spend "discussing" what kinds of foods are acceptable for breakfast, snack 1, lunch, snack 2, and dinner(i.e. why we can't have m&m's for every meal).

Does anyone have some super organized plan for keeping their house clean and their clothes clean and their kids fed? If so, I don't know if I can be friends with you anymore. Ha. Ha. Okay...it's 4:09 p.m. The kids are pouring all of their toys in their suitcases in preparation for the pretend vacation they're singing about right now. From the sounds of things they'll be needing a lot of spoons and Lincoln Logs on this vacation. Looks like I have just enough time to pop in a load of laundry, clean up after snack #2 and start cooking dinner.

9 comments:

Suzanne said...

You let your kids eat under the table? Hey, no more dirty placemats to wash!

I know that's not what you meant, but that's what I read! Ha ha.

Phillips Family said...

My laundry solution...my husband does it! I hate laundry, so he has always done it. He does all of it one day a week (however, i do small loads of sheets and random soiled kid items during the week). I put away my clothes and the kids clothes...which truly is the worst part. I would pay big money for someone to do this for me!

I feel like I spend a large portion of my day preparing, feeding, and cleaning up food messes as well.

Robin said...

My solution to the laundry question...well, it's not really a solution. I think the secret to not being constantly ticked off is to accept this as an ongoing chore. One that is never quite finished. I mean, don't you hate it when you've finally got every last item of clothing ALL of you own clean and then you take a shower and have to put your dirty underwear in that nice empty hamper? Or is that just me? Anyway, truly accepting that this chore is never really finished is my goal. I'm not saying I'm there. There are still sometimes I am tempted to do laundry naked...but nobody really wants that. A hamper with a few dirty clothes in it is much prefered.

RAK

Anonymous said...

The worst is when you get so fed up you tell your kids, "It doesn't have any stains and it doesn't smell that bad. Hang it back up!!"

Usually on the weekends, I'll be cleaning up from one meal and they're already asking me what's for the next meal. Sometimes I say, "I don't know. Whatever you can put together for yourself."

I'm with you on that monotony!

Jennifer

P.S. I love the picture!!

mdm said...

Reminds me of a Roseanne Barr line: "I will clean house when Sears comes out with a riding vacuum cleaner."

Maybe Sears has a laundry folder-put-away-er in the works.

Anonymous said...

I can offer a male, bachelor solution that will be completely irrelevant to the mommytown crowd - take everything to the dry cleaners. Stress free. Broke, but stress free.

Bradley

Anonymous said...

Yes, Bradley. But, still, does the dry cleaners come to your place and put it all away?

Jennifer

Anonymous said...

I remember the days with 4 boys, laundry everywhere all the time, the house a mess, going to sports activities, volunteering. Then, before I knew it....empty-nest syndrome - less laundry, less mess, less activities, less kids. Oh, for those days!!!! Still have a hard time putting the laundry away though.
Sarah

mdm said...

I don't know why she insists on calling our nest empty. Starting to take it personal.