Wash, Dry, Fold, Repeat

My entire life my mother has complained about the laundry. All aspects of laundry: sorting, folding, the stuff that has to be hung, things that can't be dried in the dryer, etc. none of it has escaped the wrath of mom. It seems to be her nemesis.

She still complains about doing the laundry.

She lives alone.

Well mom, in the words of Bill Clinton, "I feel your pain." Wash, dry, fold, repeat. That seems to be the purpose of my life these days and the boys are only 8 months old. This morning I began the first of six loads for the day. I could probably whittle it down to three if I didn't care what color things came out but, the fact is, I do.

So I sort. Whites, darks, reds, blues and greens. If I have enough khaki/beige then I make another pile. Towels don't fit into any category other than, towels. Sheets are also their own category. I have tried many, many different stain sticks/pretreatments. The Oxyclean Stain Stick is my favorite for removing some of the more disgusting things that the kids have blapped down their fronts.

After my husband and I were married and finally living together - it took 8 months to consolidate households - it took me another month just to get his socks white. I was tempted to just go buy him new ones and look like a "laundry guru" but I didn't want the pressure.

Before we were together he didn't sort.

He still doesn't sort.

I do the laundry. I hate the way he does laundry. He doesn't sort, he folds wrong and he doesn't put it away. Well to be fair, he did put it away when I was recuperating from the c-section (but those days are but a small, small blip on a distant radar screen). He knows that if it sits out long enough it either gets used or it miraculously ends up in his dresser. We have never discussed his unwillingness to put his laundry away and honestly, it's one of those things that really, in the big scheme of things, is not that important.

We have a pretty traditional household. I cook, clean, do laundry and am primary care giver to the kids. I work but I work from home so I'm here almost all of the time. Hubby has a job that takes him all over the place, usually about 1000 miles of driving per week. On a good week he is home before 6 every evening. He does the "hubby jobs" that include lawn care, trash removal, construction items, etc. He helps clean up from dinner and will help with just about anything around the house as long as it's not laundry.

The other night as were were getting into bed we were joking about the division of household chores. It's not something that we have ever discussed. We just fell into certain roles and that's they way it's always been. I was teasing him about how long the grass had gotten (he's sort of become OCD about the lawn) and he mentioned that I was welcome to mow the lawn. I said sure as long as he was willing to do the laundry. He replied, "But you hate the way I do laundry."

"Yeah, well, you've never seen me mow the lawn."