Homeschool Memoir #25

Please come visit this fun mem started by Miss Jocelyn over at http://homeschoolblogawards.com/

This weeks theme: Laundry
Now this is something a mother of 5 blessings knows something about!

Question: Watching the Duggars, and other mega families [our family of 11 is small in comparison!] I was astounded at how many loads of washing. Do all large families do 7 loads a day and more, as I was thinking it sounds a little OTT?
So share all about your laundry. It’s on very rare occasion that it’s suitable to air dirty laundry. Ha!

My thoughts on laundry ...

Do at least a load or two a day because if you let it get out of control its like a big gigantic snowball plummeting down a mountain! But getting to those one or two (or more) loads a day can be tricky with toddlers underfoot and babies needing to nurse and kids needing to be schooled and chauffeured to various activities. Since the whole family wears these clothes, and dirties towels I feel quite fine about having them help me accomplish our couple of loads each day. My dd (13) and ds (10) have taken very well to putting in a load or two a day, of course I still need to run down and change the loads to the drier or ask one of them to do it. And I am very blessed with a dh who does not mind folding clothes, so very often when he is home in the evenings he will watch his tv shows and fold a basket of laundry or two. I told ya ... I'm blessed! But honestly if we skip a day or two it really adds up fast and that can feel very discouraging, so I try to keep us on top of the laundry situation.

A couple other "tricks" I've learned form other moms with bigger families over the years are:

Keep sorted laundry baskets (ie one for the whites, one for the reds, one for darks ...etc) Since our laundry room is down in the basement we keep our laundry baskets just inside our master bedroom door, so in the evenings the kids bring their dirty clothes and deposit them in the appropriate laundry basket.

Having more than one dryer is a good idea and time saver. I know some families that have more than one washer two, but we have a large capacity washer and two driers set up. Works out great since the wash takes less time than the drier usually takes. If the second load of wash finishes but the first load is still not dry we can get that second load drying at the same time!

Happy washing everyone! I'll leave you with a picture of our youngest "helping" dad fold the laundry the other day