This Girl Is a Problem Solver

The wee ones are ... special. They make me giggle. Sometimes it's intentional, and sometimes, it's definitely not. We have a small issue with the wee ones forgetting to change their und*rgarments. They used to. And I swear I've taught them to do so every single day, but somehow it's not sticking.

I discovered that there was an issue when doing laundry. While I had a plethora of socks from the wee ones (more socks than I thought possible given how many days it had been since I'd done laundry, actually), the same didn't hold true for all items of their clothing. The next time I did laundry, I found the same problem. At that point, I had a discussion with the wee ones who simply looked at me blankly and stated that they didn't understand the need to change their und*rgarments every day. I looked blankly at them, considering they insist I watch their pjs every single day and they put clean clothes into the laundry basket on a regular basis.

Huh.

We have a new routine in the mornings where I knock on their doors to ensure that und*ergarments are being changed. I'd say about 80% of the time, they have forgotten. Sometimes they tell me they have changed, but fortunately, I can tell when they're not quite telling the truth. This morning, Little Miss assured me that she had had clean und*ergarments. After having just busted Mister Man, I was a little suspicious.

Me: Can you show me your dirty und*rgarments in your laundry basket? (knowing that I'd just done laundry)
Little Miss: Well, no. Last night, I didn't wear any und*rgarments so I'd definitely remember to put on clean ones when I woke up in the morning.

Well. Of course. In case you're wondering, I currently have another load of laundry running, and it does include the pjs she wore last night.

What's your best creative solution?

Oh Yeah... Laundry!

I know I'm not the only one. I'm tired of laundry. I don't actually hate doing it, but I'm just tired of it. It feels like I never have a chance to finish a load of laundry before someone in the house has put yet another item of clothing into the just emptied basket.

Yes, we are now all Sisyphus.

Every once in awhile, I just pretend like the laundry isn't there. I'll go for a few days or even gasp a week without doing laundry. I do have to check to ensure that Mister Man has enough uniform pants and shirts so that I don't get into trouble there. We've only had to go into the dirty clothes basket once to get a pair of pants this year, and that was because he somehow outgrew three pairs that we didn't realize until those were the only three pairs left.

Yesterday, Mister Man called down to me as he was getting dressed. Mooooom, I only have bad socks left. Ummm, ok. So they aren't your favorite socks. Big deal. Wear them anyway for one day, and I'll do laundry so that there are clean socks for today.

Apparently I should have delved a little deeper and found out exactly what Mister Man meant by "bad socks." Ahem.

And why yes, it was Mass Day for his school. The day when they have to wear their full uniform. Which includes only white, navy, or black socks. Oops.

I washed a lot of socks yesterday. He's good to go on socks for a good three weeks now, but I promise I'll do more laundry long before then.

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Wordless Wednesday

Soooo.

This is why my husband doesn't put away the laundry.

And why I should really go to bed earlier. I didn't notice the mismatch until I was at the gym and putting on my running shoes. Oy vey.

I am also giving away a Progresso Souper You Debut gift pack here.

Oh, and while you're at it, I finally set up a Facebook Fan page for my blog (and corrected the link here - oops!). It's way overdue. Go like me on Facebook if you would so I can get an official username - once I get enough likes. You can also follow me on Twitter, too, if you're so inclined.

It's A Conspiracy

I have three giveaways going on:
1) Through Sunday, win a $50 VISA gift card and Kleenex here
2) The green gift bag here ends tonight!
3) NEW giveaway for a Connect 4X4 game here through October 3.

***

Looking at this array of socks, how many children would you guess I have?



Let me clarify. While I'm not one of those moms who does laundry every night, I keep on top of it (side note: seriously, for those of you who do daily laundry, how do you do that? How do you find the time to get everything in, washed, dried and put away?). In fact, I did laundry on Saturday. All the laundry. I swear I did.

Go back and count the socks. And notice the six socks with no brothers or sisters.

Seriously, how does Little Miss have eight pairs of socks (not including the dark pairs that I haven't yet washed but will once she wakes up from her nap) and Mister Man go through seven pairs of socks in a four day period? Plus the random six socks (five of which are Little Miss's) that jumped into the laundry basket.

I'm beginning to think someone's trying to get me to slowly lose my sanity. However, this does explain why Mister Man had only one pair of socks in his drawer this morning when he got dressed. Well, sort of. I did buy him a ten pack of socks to supplement his existing supply four weeks ago.

Wanted!

We're in week three of t-ball. That means I've done uniform laundry twice so far. Twice. Mister Man's team is the Mets, as in the Bingham Mets of minor league fame.

And they're apparently orange. His shirt is orange. And his socks are orange.

Orange is kind of a hard color to miss -- at least in my house. And those socks are big. They literally go up to mid-thigh on him. Plus, they're really thick, wool socks, apparently because we start playing in the middle of winter around here (mid-April).

So can someone please explain why this weekend I was only able to find one hideously orange sock?



Seriously, where can the other one be? I had no idea that the laundry gnomes were this ... lacking in taste.

The worst part? What store possibly sells bright orange t-ball socks? Do you think anyone will notice if I pull the t-ball pants all the way down to his ankles next weekend?

Don't Ring My Doorbell!

It's been awhile since I turned on my clothes dryer. When it's hot in the summer, I'm loathe to make it even hotter in my house by using it. I used to just do it at night once it's cooled down, but with the washer and dryer sitting right between the wee ones' bedrooms, and Little Miss especially being a light sleeper... well, that was a little hard.

I started out just not drying certain things. Swim suits are never dried to keep them from getting yucky. And I don't dry pjs to avoid removing the flame retardant. Oh and team jerseys should never be dried. In fact, they should rarely be washed in my mind.

But this summer, my house has started looking like this on laundry day.

And this:

And this:

And yep, even this:

I just stopped drying more and more things, and then it seemed so silly to run the dryer with so few clothes in it. And we've been so busy that I rarely had time to run more than one load in a day, so the clothes would sit waiting to be dried. This just seemed better.

And then I started thinking about the energy I was saving. I felt a little green. And then I saw a little more green as my gas bills were a bit lower -- or at least the usage was lower; gas rates have gone up a lot this year! That made me feel a little better.

My husband started questioning it when he saw the assorted laundry. He brought out the redneck factor, which I repudiated with the cool green factor. And really, I do sort of tend to get my way in the house. Especially since he's banned from doing laundry after ruining enough of my clothes. Have you ever seen a silk blouse after it's been through the washer and dryer?

My plan has been to get an outdoor line drying something. But I can't find what I'm really looking for. I don't want the lines that attach to the house and pull out because I don't want anything attached to the house. I don't want the ones that are out in the middle of the yard because I want to be able to put it away when I'm not using it (and I don't want to have to pour concrete in the yard). I need something bigger than the normal line drying racks, as the sheets need enough space to be hung. Really what I think I want is something like the one that gets planted in the middle of my yard but that sits in my patio furniture umbrella stand and folds up and goes away when I'm done.

Really, I'm probably not looking hard enough. I have searched a few times, in my defense.

So in the meantime, my house looks like this when I do laundry, and I'm ok with that. Fortunately, we have a lot of bannister space. The only time we have a problem is when I realize that the mom of a friend of Mister Man's is over to pick up the pirate hat her son left behind after a playdate and will be standing in my foyer staring at my whole family's laundry. Whoops.