Laundry

A few weeks back during Sign Language class we were learning signs for chores or "duties" around the house.  It was so funny to see the young teenagers answer the question "What is your chore?" Most of them would sign one thing like take out trash or put away clothes.  Some looked at here like she was crazy, "What is a chore?"  I had to ask the teacher how do you sign ALL!  The next question was "What is your favorite chore?"  I was thinking to myself, "Did I misunderstand her signing?  How could someone have a favorite chore?"  I signed back "nothing."  Then last but not least, she asked "What chore did we HATE?"  That was easy for me.  Laundry!  Of course, my teacher and I had to have a conversation about this in front of everyone because she enjoys doing laundry.  I believe it even was her favorite chore.  I had to explain (with little knowledge of sign) that I have 9 people in my house and there is so much laundry that I could never enjoy spending hours on end doing laundry.  She understood.

I am not sure about anyone else but laundry is a battle for me.  I can never catch up.  I even have my oldest 3 doing their own laundry (yet I still seem to fold a lot of their clothes?)  About 6 months ago I was working really hard to finish and actually say that I had finished the laundry.  I had cleaned, folded and put them into the children's rooms.  It took a full week I believe of all day everyday to get to that point.  But when I got into their rooms to put the "last" of them away, I go to find out they all had piles either in their closets, under beds, or just behind their dressers.  I told myself right then and there that I would NEVER EVER try to catch up on laundry again.

Everyone has pet peeves I am sure, when it comes to laundry.  I have two.  One is that I find the most bizarre things in the laundry.  When I was gone this past Spring to see my brother, my husband was doing the laundry (shocker!).  He pulled on the clothes in the chute and a big toy came down on his head, he called to tell me and I had to laugh (of course then I was chastised by the nurse in the room at the time).  I asked him what he was doing standing under the chute while trying to pull down the laundry, but then I realized it was probably the first time he actually had to pull down the laundry.  Today I have found probably 10 ties.  Why are ties put in the laundry?  I really would like to know.  They aren't dirty.  They don't get wrinkly (unless you put the in the laundry all squished).  They don't touch your skin and get oils on them but yet every day I find another tie in the laundry.  I also have found some pretty gross things in the laundry like rotten apples, or dried dog poop.  Okay, that last one was disgusting and I had a very long "discussion" with my children after that one.  I think I almost got sick from that little "surprise."

The second pet peeve is finding folded clothes in amongst the dirty clothes.  Once you have blended a clean shirt or pants with the stinky, boy wearing, teenage smelling clothes the clean clothes have to be cleaned again no matter what!  Augh!  This makes me irritated.  What are they thinking?  I have asked why they do that and the response usually is "Oh, I forgot to put them away" or my favorite ..... "They didn't fit me and I didn't want to put them in my drawers."  Are you kidding me?  So I end up cleaning them over and over not knowing that they are not ever being worn they just don't want to deal with them.  How hard is it to put them on top of the dresser and tell me they no longer fit?  I guess it is so difficult that they need to drag them to the laundry chute and throw them in there rather than just deal with them.

THE MOST WONDERFUL SON IN THE WORLD....
Now this is going to be the shocker of all shockers.  I do have one child that LOVES, seriously loves doing laundry.  Yesterday when I took him to school, he told me he wanted to do laundry with me instead of go to school.  When I told him we could do it after school he got excited.  Who is this you ask?  My 5 year old of course!  He likes to push the buttons on the machines, fill the machine with soap (of course I am holding his heavy body so he can do it), and then watching the washing machine/dryer start to spin.  His favorite part though is to fold towels.  I do a sanitized wash of all cleaning towels once a week usually.  He loves to sit there and meticulously fold the little white towels.  Today we did one of those loads and a larger towel load and he was so excited that I had left if for when he came home.  He wants to do more but I needed to do more dishes too so he ran off to play and scream with his brothers.  I can't bare to tell him that I really hate laundry, unless I am doing it with him that is.

So now you know my least favorite chore, what is yours?  Do you have any laundry stories?  Thanks for stopping by.  I am off to put in another load of laundry.  Catch you later!