As anyone with kids knows, there are just not enough hours in the day. Not enough hours in the day to clean the house, not enough hours in the day to play with the kids, not enough hours in the day to sleep, and certainly not enough hours in the day to blog. (But I thought I would squeeze a quick writing session in. I'll call this "morning wake up time" and argue that it will make me more productive at work because my brain is already working. Yeah, that's it.)
I have a sneaky suspension that laundry could be the big time thief. I remember back in the days before dogs and children. I would do laundry every 10 days or so, and Jeff would do his once a month. (Seriously!) Then we got Prudence, and then Max, and suddenly we were doing laundry once a week. (Jeff's laundry also started mixing with mine at this point, increasing the frequency.) Then R came along, and while she certainly added to our laundry, her itty-bitty clothes just don't take that much space, and we started doing laundry every 4 or 5 days out of convenience, but it was certainly not a necessity.
We actually stayed at that level of laundry for a long time. But now laundry is at a whole new level. I like to blame it on the fact that we have a puker, a pee-er, and a pooper. (In addition to generating laundry, kids and dogs also make you very comfortable discussing bodily fluids!) Poor little L, with his acid reflux, is our puker. Food goes in, and at least three times out of four, spit up comes out. Not only does he generate a lot of laundry as he spits up on his clothes and on burp cloths, but he usually gets us, so Jeff and I must add our clothes to the laundry pile. There are also all the associated towels, blankets, and household items that must be cleaned as a result. He is probably our worst offender.
Close behind is M, the pee-er. These days, you cannot survive pregnancy or having a young infant without being inundated with reminders that you should put your baby to sleep on his back, as back sleeping cuts the risk of death from SIDS by 50%. M refuses to listen. He always has. Now that he can roll over, if we do something as foolish as put him to sleep on his back, he will immediately roll over on to his belly. Even if he is asleep when we put him down, he will slowly roll over in his sleep. He wants to be on his belly. Not only is this not good for him with the whole staying alive thing, but it inevitably leads to diaper disasters. He gets really relaxed when he sleeps on his belly. His system flushes all the extra fluid. He quickly runs out of room in his diaper, even though we bumped him up to R's diapers weeks ago. And so at least twice a week, he wakes up during the night having soaked through his diaper, his clothes, his sheets, and his mattress cover. We change him, and then we add all of that to the laundry pile.
And last, but not least, is the pooper. R is pretty potty trained and has even been staying dry at nap time and overnight for weeks. But she is still having issues with, as she puts it, numero dos. She just doesn't like putting numero dos in the potty. So then we have her undies. And her shorts. And occasionally the bathroom rug. The only good part is that she loves helping with the laundry. I wonder if we can remind her of this in 10 years?
And for the record, that isn't a photo of our laundry pile. But I bet we could beat it!
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