Laundry Talk

One would think that a girl who grew up in a house with eight people in her family, then went on to marry a boy who grew up with eight people in his family, and together created a family of nine would have a good handle on How to Do Laundry in a Big Family.

Surprise!  It alludes us.  Still.  After *almost* 21 years of marriage and 20 years of child-rearing, we have yet to get our act together about the laundry.

Over the years, we've tried many things.  In the beginning, I would do the laundry (located in our scary basement) and fold and put away everybody's clothes.  When I was pregnant, Phil would take over laundry duty because going up and down two to three sets of stairs, holding a big hamper of clothes while pregnant is not the best idea.

Now you know why I kept myself pregnant for all those years ;)

We finally moved the laundry upstairs to the second floor, where all the kids bedrooms are located.  This was much better than the scary basement, and Phil and I continued doing the laundry in the same fashion - everything that was dirty from the day gets thrown in together.

Once we had teenagers that were capable of doing the laundry, that became one of their chores.  I would typically start the wash after work and the teen would switch it to the dryer and fold whatever was in the dryer from the day before (after fluffing it, of course).

As the years went on, the laundry seemed to grow out of control.  Even though we did a load every single day, and a couple on weekends, we could never seem to keep up.  Which leads me to a fun fact about kids -  Little kids, little clothes.  Big kids, big clothes plus fashion matters plus multiple outfits a day for school and sports.  I should crochet that onto a pillow.

Plus it seemed like everyone had their own way of doing laundry, choosing different settings on the machines and throwing in random amounts of detergent.  And then when it came to folding - oof.  Each person has a container where their folded laundry goes.  Then they are supposed to take their container to their room and put it away neatly.  We still do this part for the little kids.  Well as you can imagine, some people fold more neatly than others, and some just throw the clean laundry into the containers.  Clothes constantly went into the wrong containers, as having six boys gets confusing. Some people empty their containers on a regular basis and some just seem to dress themselves directly from the containers instead of their drawers.

Disaster Zone

Eamon, the current teenager with the Laundry Chore Card, who is as Type A as his mother, created this handy dandy recipe so that we would all do the laundry the same way:

Isn't that a great image of Our Lady?  It helps me to remember to pray for my children as I fold and sort.

So now that we were all using the laundry recipe, we tried to think about how to streamline the process.  I bought four cheap pop-up hampers and we decided that the four oldest kids could keep their dirty clothes separated individually, and then do their own laundry.  That way, they wash and fold their own clothes and there's no more mixing up their clothes.  We still do a daily load consisting of clothes from Phil, me, Xander, Declan and Brendan.

It seems to be working better that the old way.  However, I'm still finding teen laundry mixed in with ours when they need something washed last minute or throw it in the downstairs hamper instead of the hamper in their room(s).  

Now it's your turn!  Feel free to evaluate our laundry sitch and give us some advice on what works for you!  Does your recipe include Tide?  Lysol? Downy Infusions? Cold water?  Hot water?  Do you sort?