A Post About Laundry / by Kate Brightbill

Sooo, how do you feel about laundry? I'll tell you how I feel about it: womp whommmmp... Currently, it's under control in my house, but that's saying something. Here's the thing: when Brian and I got married, we had coin operated laundry in basements. We moved a couple times: same deal. We had Sophie & decided to move to a place without laundry completely- if you saw the views from every window, and the natural light, you'd understand our lapse in judgment a bit better- oh wait, I still have a picture handy:

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See? So yes, you'd want to move to a place without laundry if you got that view too, right? Okay, maybe we're not on the same page here, but back to it:  by the time Maggie was about 4-months old and we had one kid in a closet (a super CUTE closet at least) and the other sharing our room, we realized it was time to move... with the move, we got a place where the laundry is free. 

Now, wouldn't you think that the place where laundry was most under control would be our current place? Granted we have plenty of stairs to climb up and down, but it's free. And handy! Nope. The laundry was always done... when we had to do it at a laundromat. When I took a stroller, a toddler, a pregnant self and walked six blocks, up and down three flights of stairs every week... THAT is where my laundry was cleanest. Weird, I know. I mean, granted, there was no real space to PUT the folded clothing, but at least it was folded, right?

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(this is an actual picture of folded laundry on a changing pad... efficient, right? we've come a long way baby... now we each have these newfangled things called dressers!)

SO, along with all my other spring cleaning resolutions, I've included laundry. And my children are required to participate now. And it works!! I mean, Maggie does take her dad's pants and put them in their play kitchen refrigerator, and my socks have been found in her pajama drawer... but as long as my eye is basically following the girls as they "fold" and put their laundry away, it goes in the right direction!  

I think sometimes it's too easy to stick kids in front of screens and say "hey, I need to do the laundry for 15" and get myself worked up about the fact that they couldn't actually sit for 15 minutes, then toss the laundry into the basket in the corner of a room and let it marinate until all is peaceful and hope I can catch up with the rest at some point or another in this life of chaos.  Now suddenly, it's a family, FUN affair and it's a teaching opportunity too! 

Who knew?

(clearly I'm a mother if I'm here writing posts about laundry... sheesh, I need to get out more!)