Thursday, April 29, 2010

The Laundry Plan That Changed My Life

When John was deployed I adopted all kinds of new coping methods for single parenting. Number one, I stopped bathing the kids. Hell, it was winter and they weren't too dirty, right?

But the other thing I started doing has changed everything for me. I stopped folding my kids' clothes. I am pretty good at starting the laundry and even pretty good at getting it into the dryer. After that, all hell breaks loose. I H.A.T.E. folding and H.A.T.E. (even more) putting the laundry away. Laundry would sit around in piles for days....weeks, even. I would move the piles around and dig through them for clothes and move them again.

So I decided to embrace my inner laziness. I no longer mixed any kid clothes in with our clothes. In fact, I got each kid their own hamper and only washed the clothes in that hamper in a load. Each kid had their own load of laundry done. And, here is where it gets good. I stopped folding the kids clothes. Seriously, this is just so perfect I can't believe they don't teach you this the minute you pop out a kid. Why the HELL do those little pants need to be folded?? They don't! I'm telling you. The minute you put them on a kid, they are instantly covered in snot, food, marker, juice.... I mean what is the point!? And they are definitely less wrinkled than when I used to just dump them in a laundry basket and ignore them for a week....

Each time a child's hamper was full, I dumped it in, washed, dried and then dumped it right onto their bed. Since I'm not lazy enough to put a kid to bed on top of laundry, this forced me to get it put away before bedtime. And then I would just open the shirt drawer and put the shirts in. UNFOLDED. I mean, I would stack them, usually. Open the pants drawer, in go the unfolded pants. Y'all. I have never, ever been so on top of laundry in my entire life. No more toting away from the dryer, dumping, folding, stacking, moving cycle!

When I do the grown-up laundry, there are no kid clothes mixed in. It just seems more manageable. Not a giant pile full of small, unmatched socks.

So, the next thing I need to do is to learn how to embrace my inner laziness with the photo organizing New Year's Resolution, which so far, has completely not happened AT ALL.

8 comments:

molly said...

oooooo! i'm loving this! you're brilliant!

Angie said...

Hmmm. Interesting. I do such stupid things with laundry. I fold stuff, that I then carry upstairs and hang up. Why did it need to be folded to carry to the bedroom? I may have to try this. I'm not sure about the not folding thing, though. How do the clothes fit in drawers if not folded?

Kayris said...

I don't fold my kids clothes either. What's the point? Especially since the 3 year old will insist on dressing herself and dig through the drawer looking for a certain shirt, messing up all the rest of the clothes in the process. And how, exactly, does one fold toddler underwear?

My mother struggles with it though and she actually IRONS my kids clothes when she babysits. Although she hasn;t done it recently, so maybe she realized what a giant waste of time it was.

Unknown said...

Ha ha. I love it. I'm the exact way! I kinda do that with not folding. Except when pants find their way in the shirt drawer, they get disorganized for a few months until I organize the drawers again. I do hang up dresses and some shirts, jackets, etc.

And Kayris is right. Liv dresses herself five times a day. Why would I bother folding her stuff especially. I would spend all day yelling at her to fold her stuff and put it back in the proper drawer again.

Katie said...

Becca has a big drawer with shirts and big drawer with pants/bottoms. Both of them are perpetual disasters. She totally digs through there. So, I just quit. Andrew doesn't dig through his, but his clothes are so little that folding seems ridiculous. I just jam them in there. I probably lose the time I save because I have to dig around to find matching stuff, but I don't MIND doing that. I do MIND folding laundry. So, it all equals out but keeps me on top of it!

Jen said...

GENIOUS.

Laura said...

So funny. I have a new laundry plan, too. I just may have to blog about it now.

Andrea and Ben said...

I have mentioned many times how much I H.A.T.E folding clothes. HATE. Real simple actually had an article about laundry hatred recently. I loved it. I am now doing this with Reid's clothes. Thank you for bringing this to my attention!!!