So I’m loving laundry day. Mostly the lack of the nagging I-should-be-doing-laundry-right-now feeling.
It’s an almost perfect plan. Focus for one day. Forget it – sans guilt – for the other six. I’ve even proven that I can do it on days when we have a field trip to the zoo. Nothing’s stopping me now, right?
Right?
Nothing except this:
That’s my daughter’s room. And here’s the part where I live up to my promise of honesty. That picture was taken after the room was half cleaned up. Meaning . . . anywhere you see carpet in the picture was covered with stuff.
I noticed on Sunday night when I was gathering up the laundry that I didn’t have a very big pile for “lights.” You know, the pinks, purples, anything-pastel. Basically, the little girl pile.
I noticed, but didn’t register what should have been obvious. In my lame defense, I was in a hurry to get going on the loads since I knew that I’d be leaving before 8 a.m. Monday morning for the zoo.
Then yesterday, in an effort to curtail some high-pitched whining, I decided to implement a policy that I had heard a friend use with her kids recently. If they want to watch TV, they have to have their room cleaned up first.
Love that idea. I used it once, but until last night, I’d forgotten to use it again. And that’s when I looked, really looked at my daughter’s room. I knew it was bad, but had used my super-selective-vision-power to avoid letting it register.
It was kick-a-clear-path-to-the-door-to-avoid-serious-middle-of-the-night-injuries bad. It was who-could-even-notice-all-the-dirty-clothes-on-the-floor-when-it’s-this-bad bad.
Bad.
So there’s Laundry Day’s fatal flaw. Like EVERYthing else I learn in this de-slobification process, it’s all related. You can’t mop the floor and clean the kitchen by 9:30 a.m. if you have to remove three weeks worth of newspapers off of the kitchen floor, put away Monday’s groceries, pick up and return toys, etc. before you can even sweep, much less mop.
You can’t do a quick round-the-house laundry pickup on Sunday night when your daughter’s dirty clothes are buried beneath all of her toys.
The boys room has been so much better. Not fabulous, but so much better. It’s because they are self-motivated by their allowance. I set up that allowance system because that’s what we needed. We needed something that helped them remember to pick up their room before bed, because their slob-mother isn’t going to remember to remind them.
So my daughter, who isn’t yet motivated by an allowance, and who has the same slob-mother, has a room that looks worse than that picture. She CAN clean it. We established places for everything back in the fall, and that makes it so much easier, actually possible, when it wasn’t before. I know that she can do it by herself because she did it when my mom watched her last week. It’s simply a matter of consistency, which needs to be directed . . . by me.
In her defense, it doesn’t get like that on a normal day. She can go quite a while with it being “not that bad” if she’s just playing in there by herself. That was what it looked like after she had friends come over and play (last week). She and her friends ALWAYS get out every single item that she owns.
And her mother, like her, doesn’t think to have everyone stop in time to clean up. It’s fun, fun, fun until the moment it’s time to go home. Totally understandable for a 4 year old, not so much for a 36 year old.
It’s my goal to make the “Clean your room before you watch a show” rule a daily thing. But I have to remember, as I have the suspicion that she won’t remind me.
For me implementing the @ least one load a day rule helped me immensely. I used to do laundry one day a week but I would do so much that I would fail at follow through… it rarely got put away. Now I wash, dry and put away @ least one load a day. (I say @ least b/c I have a one year old and sometimes I HAVE to do a second load in a day)
Laundry is the only place where I don’t struggle. It helps that my husband and my older daughter do their own so it’s just me and my little one’s laundry. I have a laundry routine, so that helps. Laundry in the morning during homeschool. Every other aspect of my house needs de-slobificating. Slowly but surely it’s getting there!
Oh my goodness. To keep up with my family, at a minimum, I would have to wash 2 loads a day. One day I actually took it all to the laundrymat and I was there for 6 hours! lol. The problem is that I was so burned out that I didn't do laundry again for a long time and now I'm backed up again. 😛
I like to follow the 1 load a day too b/c I can't devote a 1/2 or whole day just for laundry and whoever has their loads in the washing area gets theirs done first I wash, dry, and fold they put them away before the next day. If not I announce they have 5 min before they are bagged and in the trash never a hesitation Also post on your tv the clean room = tv time and you'll be better to serve that rule.
Not to disagree with everyone who responded, but I do the bulk of my laundry on one day, and it really works for me. I also have ALWAYS made my kids clean up before bedtime, starting with the front of the house, going to the family room, then upstairs to finish in their rooms. I set a timer so they wouldn't get distracted. If they weren't done when the timer went off, no bedtime video. And the clean-up certainly included them putting their dirty clothes in the hamper!! I know you can do it, Nony! Keep it up! Just remember to start their bedtime routine 30 minutes earlier. As they get older, it will be automatic for them.
I have tried both ways, and finally decided that this way works better for me because I stay focused for one day. Doing a load a day, I would invariably forget a step and then fall behind until I was never completely done.
You sound so much like me! My own inconsistency has always been the weak link in any of my great organizational plans! I love your blog–you're such a kindred spirit!
the thing about laundry is that it changes and we go through stages. There was a time in my life when I did not even think about it and it got done. Then there were 3 children and I did it once a week….then there were 7 and it was 4 or more a day and now we are back to two a day and that works for us….but I think it changes, just as everything in our life changes. The hardest part for me is when I finally get it figured out that was yesterdays'stage!
My current laundry room doesn't lend itself to this, but at our old house we had a great system. There was a shelf that would hold 4 milk crates perfectly. Every night after the kids took their bath, they would bring their laundry to the laundry room and put everything in the correct crate (lights, darks, reds, and underwear was our system at the time). The nice thing about this method was that not only was everything already sorted for me, but the kids didn't have laundry on their bedrooms floors, and if I needed to get a head start on laundry, I could see what would make a full load.
In our current house, we have a laundry chute but no room for the sorting system we had before. Certain people leave laundry all over bedrooms and bathrooms, even TWO FEET AWAY FROM THE CHUTE. It is incredible.
I'm like you – it's hard enough to remember the stuff I have to do, let alone remind the kids to pick up after themselves (let alone on a daily basis). I love when you point out your nonsensical slob tendencies and habits, because I totally get it.
TJ
I’m one of those septic system people you’re always issuing a warning to so I have to go the one load per day route. lol But I don’t have kids so it’s not an issue for me. I can’t even imagine the laundry mountain that comes with kids. To think that my mom’s mom used a hand wringer with 7 kids… Yowser.
My granddaughters (13 and 17 next month) had separate rooms this past 3 years, but have had to combine now so I can have a bedroom again. The oldest is an artist and loves working in the middle of the bedroom floor, which was fine when she was alone, but isn’t so great now. Her preferred place for the clothes she has worn is right where she drops them before bed — also the middle of the floor. This was okay (no, but I didn’t gripe at her constantly) when she was alone, but it really ticks off her younger sister, who would like a path from her top bunk to the bedroom door. For now I’m simply tossing the clothes from the floor to the middle of her bed in the morning, because I refuse to lug them to the washing machine and I don’t think her sister should have too, either. It has only been 3 weeks, but she has to get a handle on this before a war breaks out.