Tips for Taming the Laundry Monster

I've often said (especially since having children) that laundry is the bane of my existence.  It's my least favorite household chore because it seems to pile up faster than I can take care of it.  With each child we added to our family, I got more and more behind and couldn't seem to catch up.  The couch was constantly hidden under a pile of laundry, and I spent a lot of time digging through the piles trying to find a shirt for someone or matching socks for someone else.

Finally, about two months ago, I put together a system for doing laundry.  Since then, I've been behind on laundry one time for a few days, and that was only because we were gone a lot one week.  That is absolutely nothing short of a miracle.

First, I divided up our laundry into categories:

• Towels
• Kids' clothes
• Adult clothes
• Hubby's farm clothes (which have to be washed separately because of the lovely hog smell.)  

Next, I assigned each category to a day of the week:

Monday: Wash Hubby's farm clothes
Tuesday: Wash towels
Wednesday: Kids' clothes
Thursday: Mine and Hubby's clothes 

This gives me Friday and the whole weekend off from the pressure of doing laundry.  If we're gone all day and I don't get a chance to do that day's laundry, I can simply move it over to a free day and stay caught up.

The key to making this schedule work is folding and putting away the clothes right away instead of dumping it all out on the couch to worry about later. 

I've also found it's easier to stay caught up on folding and putting away laundry when I'm just doing one category a day.  I used to tackle 6-8 loads in one day, and it was completely overwhelming to stay on top of folding and putting it all away.  When you're not behind on the laundry already, folding and putting away 1 or 2 loads is not a big deal.  That used to be my biggest problem, but now it's not an issue because I'm staying caught up.

Is laundry an ongoing issue for you or have you found any tricks to help you stay on top of it?  I'd love to hear how you handle laundry at your house!  
   

Random Observations

It amazes me how little boys can pee ON the potty chair, UNDER the potty chair, and AROUND the potty chair all in one sitting, but somehow avoid getting even one drop IN the potty chair.

Our neighbor gave us her old Christmas tree this year.  Which was really sweet and awesome and I love that it looks so much nicer than the $20 Walmart tree we had before.  Except that when I took all the Christmas decorations down yesterday, I realized that we have absolutely nowhere to store our awesome new tree.  The kids think it's neat that Christmas is over and there's a random pine tree "growing" in our living room.

I have the best baby in the world.  Seriously.  Total cutie, amazing sleeper, hearty eater. 
  

Laundry.  Blech.

I desperately want to watch the Lord of the Rings trilogy again and see The Hobbit in a theater.  But no one's offering to take my kids for 10 hours so I can watch the trilogy or pay for my gas and ticket to a movie theater.  Are they?  *hint hint*

I hate potty training kids.  Hate it. Hate it. Hate it.


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31 Days-Stop Losing Baby Socks

Someone gave me a mesh lingerie wash bag for a baby shower when I was expecting Princess.  I thought it was kind of a strange gift until she explained that it could be used for washing baby socks and other little baby things such as bibs, mittens, etc.

I thanked her, put the bag away and forgot about it until I started regularly losing baby socks in the wash.  I finally figured out that front loading machine actually do eat socks (and all this time, I thought it was a myth!  Take that, MythBusters!) because they get stuck in the rubber gasket around the door.  I fished a ton of soggy (ew!) socks out of the gasket and dug out the lingerie bag.

I tied a piece of ribbon on each end of the bag, which was easy since I could thread it through the mesh, hung it on the end of the changing table, and simply threw the socks in there as I took them off.  When it was time to do laundry, I tucked the ribbon inside the bag, zipped it shut, and threw it in with the rest of the wash.

Presto!  No more lost socks!

You can use a regular lingerie mesh wash bag like this:

Mesh Lingerie Delicates Wash Bag - Household Essentials #121

 Or...I just found this awesome baby laundry bag by Munchkin that has two compartments for sorting laundry.  This would also be great if you have more than one little one because each child's socks could go into a separate compartment.  

Munchkin Baby Laundry Bag

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31 Days-Organizing Towels and Washcloths

Hubby taught me this trick for folding towels and washcloths after we got married because it's the way his mom had always done it.

Instead of folding bath towels and washcloths separately, which means storing them separately and taking up more space in your linen closet, fold them together.

So simple, but it makes things easier, especially for guests.  Just fold the washcloth in half and fold it inside the bath towel.  Then you just have to grab one thing from the linen closet instead of two.  

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My Bouncing Baby Boy

I love Little Man. He smiles easily and has started laughing although I'm not sure if he's laughing because he's happy or if he's laughing at me.

Little Man is also pretty challenging. The only way to get him to sleep is to swaddle him tightly, give him a pacifier, throw a blanket over his face, and bounce him. I have an exercise ball that I spend several hours a day on...not exercising, but bouncing Little Man, who is quite literally my bouncing baby boy. If I forget to cover Little Man's face with a blanket while trying to convince him that he needs at least one nap during the day, he simply will not close his eyes. My theory is that he never has actually fallen asleep, but simply passes out from lack of oxygen due to having his face covered. Don't worry though. When he falls asleep, I pull the blanket off his face so he can revive himself within 11 minutes and then proceed to scream for the next two hours because he's so tired.

Little Man may view falling asleep as tantamount to having his fingernails pulled out one by one, and he may have issues with taking a nap that's longer than 17 minutes at at time, but he does sleep through the night. So my days are frustrating and long while my nights are peaceful and full of sleep. When I'm out somewhere and Little Man is screaming his head off like I've forgotten to feed him for a week, I get looks of pity which turn into deep sympathy when I explain that this is what he does EVERY TIME he gets tired. Then, I usually make the mistake of saying, "Well, at least he sleeps through the night." At that point, most people roll their eyes and tell me that I don't know how good I have it. I'll agree with that. I've been blessed with two children who, so far, (knock on wood, cross fingers, pray HARD) are good at sleeping during the night, but lack that skill during the day. However, people don't have much sympathy for a mom with a "high-needs" baby if that baby sleeps through the night. Guess I don't blame them though. I'd much rather that Little Man is a bear during the day as long as he sleeps all night.

Unsolicited Advice:
When taking laundry out of the dryer, fold it and stack it in the laundry basket instead of just dumping it all in. This ensures that, even if you don't have time to even look at the basket of clothes again until you actually need to wear something out of it, you will at least find folded clothes instead of a wrinkled mess.