Monday, September 10, 2012

Wash and Hide

My kids have chores.

Sometimes, I even enforce them.

There are the typical chores such as tidying the living room, picking up the pile sweatshirts and backpacks from the floor in the entry way, and loading the dishwasher.

Mostly, I just ask the kids to help out at random and they will.

But then there are some chores that I personally detest doing.

Like laundry.

Because there is always a massive amount.

I will wash and dry and fold the clothes, but my kids are responsible for putting the clothing away by themselves.

I don't always agree with the way the shirts get shoved into the drawers, or how socks are randomly shoved in every drawer but I've made peace with the fact that I con't control everything they do. If my 9 wants to wear a wrinkly shirt, so be it.

This morning, my kids spent about forty-five minutes arguing about which one of them got to use the bathroom first, then another fifteen minutes debating the fairness of who got the last waffle, so by eight o'clock they were rushing around the house like mad trying to get out the door on time.

Which left their enormous mountain of laundry piled up in the hall, since all of the kids spent the weekend neglecting chores and opting to play outside instead.

No big deal. Sometimes, I don't mind helping out and will ferry laundry to the appropriate dressers. I really needed to vacuum the hallway, so I decided to put the laundry away myself. I figured the kids could help out in other ways, like running errands and paying bills.

I was putting away the 5's stack when I noticed her drawers seemed pretty empty. That kid has quite a bit of clothing and everything needs to be put away in a certain manner or else nothing will fit.

I stood for a moment, pondering the issue. I'd just washed every article of clothing in the house, and there I was holding the last of her shirts. And the drawers were only half full.

Perplexed, I turned to put away my 9's socks and that's when I saw it.

A leak.


Seems my 5 had just been stashing her laundry between the dresser and the dollhouse.

How clever.

How detrimental to her freedom.

Guess who has full laundry detail for the next week?

Oh, yeah.

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