It’s 8:17pm on a Sunday. I have to get up early for work tomorrow, as many of you do. And I just sat down after giving the kids dinner, putting them to bed, cleaning up the kitchen and then folding two heaping mountains of tiny kid laundry. Oh, and putting it away as silently as possible while my 20-month-old nugget slept quietly in the crib just feet from me.
Why should you care? It’s not so much that you care that I’m doing laundry. It’s WHY I’m doing said laundry. And before I get too far into this, Jeremy said it was okay for me to write this blog. He is great and does a lot for our family. This is just one thing that comes up so often it’s now somewhat comical. In his own [text message] words about me writing this blog: “I deserve it tho.” (Though*)
You see, I had to fold this laundry because one clean basket of it had been sitting in our room for probably three days. Then Jeremy hastily threw in another load today right before he left for an out-of-town work trip. He did manage to switch it over to the dryer, but it was still there waiting for me. As well as one more load of kid laundry that needed to be washed, dried and folded.
I’m not great at math, but let’s add that up. One huge load of clean laundry that was loitering around, annoying the hell out of me for three days. Then two more loads of laundry today. In total, these three laundry loads created the two heaping mountains mentioned above.
It took me just over an hour to do everything. Not too bad, right? But if it only took me that long, why wasn’t it already done?!
Did I mention the laundry to the hubs yesterday since we were home for hours in the afternoon/evening/night? Yes. Did I [firmly] suggest to him that he should “just get it done so that it is done” and so that I wouldn’t have to keep nagging? Yes. Every yes. Yes, yes, yes.
Okay, let’s stop here for a second. I hear some of you wondering why I’m complaining and don’t just do the laundry myself. Well, we divide and conquer around here. We both work outside of the home full-time during the week, so I do most of the cooking, dishes, straightening up and bathroom cleaning, and Jeremy handles the laundry and running all the errands like Costco, Target and getting gas. Sound like a good split, right? It is.
But the difference is that, like in many relationships, one of us just likes to get things done so that they’re done…and the other likes to do one thing, like throw a load of laundry in the washer, and go on with their day until six hours later when they realize they literally threw in one load of laundry in an entire day and haven’t even put it in the dryer.
That literally drives me crazy. Insane. And it’s a common topic of [less than friendly] conversation in these here parts. Can anyone relate? If I washed a dish every six hours, we’d have no dishes to eat off of. If I only fed the kids once a day, they’d probably be upset. If I cleaned the toilets once every six months, we’d have no friends. Get my drift?
I’m by no means the cleanest, neatest person in the world. Believe me. But I am someone who likes to just get things done as soon as possible so they aren’t lingering over me — and so there is some semblance of order amidst our chaos.
And I’m not saying that my way is the “right way.” It is however the “done way.”
So, come on…just do the laundry.
happily everly after—and everything in between 