I do a lot of laundry. Laundry is that one chore I can never get under control. Actually there are a lot of chores I can't seem to get a handle on but laundry is the worst.
I've taken to washing and drying it all on Monday and folding it all on Tuesday. This leads to mountains of clean clothes in the laundry room making it impossible to fully open the laundry room door. By the end of Monday I am climbing onto a pile of clothes to empty the washer, and have to send part of that mountain into the hallway to open the dryer door. I'm sure there is a better system out there, and I've tried plenty, but this is the only system I have found that even vaguely works for me.
So one day in the midst of my laundry pile I started counting. If each kid wears a full outfit a day that amounts to two socks, underwear, shirt, and pants; five pieces of laundry per day per child. Now sometimes they don't always change certain articles of clothing without express urging but it evens out with the days Grace changes her shirt four times.
So each day the kids create roughly twenty pieces of laundry. Plus PJ's. Let's say one piece per child, per day. That takes into account footie pajamas, and two piece pajamas, and the occasional just underwear night. So that brings my daily total up to 24 pieces of laundry from the children each day.
Michael and I also wear clothes (big shocker, I know). That adds roughly another 10 items a day. So now we are at 34 pieces of laundry, per DAY. Multiply that by 7 days in a week and you get 238 pieces of laundry a week. This is on a good week when no one has any accidents, no one pukes on anything, no one is playing in the kitchen sink and ends up soaking wet and needs a dry outfit. Okay, so we don't have good weeks. This also doesn't include the 15 or so wash rags and kitchen towels nor the same quantity of hand towels and wash cloths. Let's not forget bath towels and sheets. All these add at least 50 more items. So all together we dirty 288 items in a perfect week with no extra laundry. 288. That is crazy. No wonder I can never get laundry caught up. I spend all day Tuesday folding ALMOST 300 items.
I hate laundry.
6 comments:
bwahahaha! I was just staring at the mountain of laundry that has been sitting on my couch for at least a week and thinking the same thing! I never could understand how just ONE child could add so much laundry! Thanks for the mathematical breakdown- now I feel better about hating laundry!
I liked what Shelly Henningfield said, "God gave us laundry to better help us understand eternity."
Adrianne, I LOVE that. I've never heard her say that but now I have one more reason to love that awesome lady.
Have you tried one load a day?
I feel you pain! One thing that helped me is getting rid of all the clothes my kids have. They now have enough clothes for about 9 days, not 20 like before. I swear my boys shirts multiply in their drawers!
Ann, I've tried the one load a day but I never seemed to get them folded and then I still had the pile in the laundry room, but all week instead of just one day. I don't know why I can't make it work but I can't seem to.
Beth, isn't it crazy how their clothes multiply. It's on my list this week to weed out closets. Uggg. That's almost as much fun as laundry.
Post a Comment