Destroyer of Laundry

It's laundry day.

Yesterday was also laundry day.

And the day before.

If you, y'know, wear clothes, this is a familiar process. And if you have kids, you really know how this goes. I'm not sure exactly how, but adding Danny to our household doubled the amount of laundry we create. The kid's only 16 pounds! (And yet, he produces more than triple his mass in spit-up every day.)

Laundry is my nemesis. It lurks in every corner of my house. A stray sock among the baby toys. A slimy bib draped over the back of the chair. The ever-growing pile behind the bathroom door. Everywhere I go, everything I do, it's watching me. It's like Sting.

I hate laundry.

But I have this new philosophy about housework. It's called Defeating It So It Can't Defeat Me.



I'm not Sally Cleanhouse. I'm glad Tim is a dedicated vacuuumer, because I've vacuumed exactly once in recent memory. When I apologize to my friends for the "mess," I'm just doing it as a formality. I follow my mom's time-honored tradition of straightening up before company comes over, and occasionally inviting company over as a motivator, but ultimately being comfortable with clutter.

The problem: It's easy to live with floors that have gone awhile without a mopping and a few toys scattered around. (I'm actually kind of creeped out by houses that contain children but no scattered toys.) But some chores don't have a happy medium between done and disaster. Laundry, for one.

Hence the new strategy: If we do a little laundry every day, a few dishes every day, do a rudimentary toy picking-up with Henry every night, no chore ever piles up to the point it turns into a drooling beast.

I don't consider keeping our home tidy my job by any means -- and not just in the sense that it's not my job in particular just because I'm the mama. I don't consider it anyone's job, because "job" implies it's something that should occupy us, be central to our lives. We have better things to do, like reading and playing outside and watching marathons of Warehouse 13 on Instant Netflix. (We take our nerdship seriously in this house.)

I'm not giving housework any more of our time or energy.

What I'm realizing, though, is that it's not just doing chores that takes up time and energy. The time is actually relatively light. (Especially because I stick to the basics -- I don't think I've ironed anything in about ... three years.) What was killing me was the dread.

I put off the laundry and it piles up. The piles overwhelm me. I put off the laundry some more because I'm overwhelmed. The laundry starts to fester and grow limbs. It tries to gnaw my foot off when I wander upstairs to the bathroom at night. Et cetera.

No more! I will defeat the beast! And I'm sharing this with you, Babblists (you have a name now, readers! Almost went with Taraists but changed my mind ...) because it will help keep me accountable.

If you ever walk into my house and see it spit-shined and sparkling, take away my mop and give me a book. But if you see the Laundry Monster beginning to lurk, kick my butt into gear.

(And please, share your own chore-defeating tactics in the comments.)