The laundry didn’t just need done, it needed redone.
We made the switch from two children to three children almost one year ago. The laundry, and every other household system, has had to adjust. Many were the mornings that little people came downstairs complaining that there were no clothes. We didn’t have much in the way of clean clothes ourselves. Even at the best of times, the laundry room was a mountain of laundry, and everyone was a few socks away from flip flops. So we overhauled the system. By system, I mean, what we’d been doing for the last five years: one hamper for kid clothes, one hamper for grown up clothes, and anything else was kind of thrown on top on the way down to the laundry room. Everyone was tired of “going fishing” for underwear, and I was finally willing to admit defeat as regards the old way of doing the laundry.
So.
My husband is a physicist.
And considering systems is kind of what he does. After careful consideration of different pieces of the system, he announced that we were going to get separate laundry baskets for each member of the family. I was skeptical. According to him, the time and effort sinkhole occurred when we tried to sort and fold and put away two baskets of hodge podge – towels, kid clothes, my socks, a hot pad, a bunch of legos. Any lost momentum due to interruptions (undiagnosed screaming, diaper changes, what have you) meant that everything, unsorted but folded, was put back into a basket. Where it became more unsorted… and also unfolded.
The observation rang true, but I was still skeptical about the “many different baskets” hypothesis. And I really wanted to reiterate the one who is defending the home front (and therefore plugging away at the laundry the most) is ME. I mean, no one was arguing against that, but I still wanted to reiterate it. Instead, we went to Wal-Mart and bought some extra baskets.
He set the following system in place:
Each adult and child has their own laundry basket. There’s a separate basket for towels. When a family member notices that their laundry basket is full, the family member in question takes (of their own initiative) their laundry basket to the washer. The kids need some prompting, but it works. The entire load is one person’s clothes. Whites, delicates, bright colors, heavy fabrics, it all goes in the same thing. With help, little people do the soap. They also help move the load to the dryer. Once the load is dry, it is returned to the basket from whence it came, and, if it is a child’s basket, the child (again, with help) takes the basket upstairs and sorts it into separate bins for tops (which includes dresses for a certain two almost three-year-old who wears nothing else), bottoms, under wear, and socks. Tiny clothes are not folded. Tiny socks are not matched.
HE runs our loads through. I fold clothes and put them away. At least, I fold them. And… when it’s just one person’s clothes, it doesn’t take as long.
Each person can get by without fishing for underwear as long as their basket is done once a week.
If someone’s basket isn’t folded or put away, but just dried and left in the laundry room, they can find their socks in a fraction of the time.
And – there is nothing on EARTH like folding a load that is JUST TOWELS. It’s like I CAN TOTALLY HANDLE THIS – it’s JUST TOWELS. YES, child you can help me fold that BECAUSE IT’S JUST A TOWEL. SO WHAT? ALL THE REST OF THESE ARE ALSO JUST TOWELS. YAY!
Anyway.
I was wrong. I needed a system that had a much more reasonable goal. Now, “Finish the laundry” means “finish a basket,” and that’s… better.
And my husband was right. And he knew more about what it would take to fix the system than I gave him credit for, even though he’s often not here when it happens.
Systems. You… need them.
I’m not naïve enough to believe that one system works for everyone. Or that a system that has been working will never need re-working. But I do know this: for the sake of sustainability, our systems need to be exactly as weird as our family.
Awesome! Enjoyed reading. Do you ever have a child's week's load with only 1 pair of underwear? Hee hee