I was a half an hour late to my 4 month olds doctors appointment today. I decided it was too hard to explain why I was a half an hour late, so I just went in and said, "I'm sorry, I came at the wrong time." The doctor was kind enough to fit me in. When the doctor finally came into the exam room I apologized and she said, while looking at my five children, "I'm amazed you can do what you do!" Well, sometimes I put on good appearances, but we're falling apart on the inside. I'm sure all mothers understand that. Rare is the day that I feel completely in control....but I sure try hard!
Many times I've had people ask how I do what I do. How do you get everything done? they say. Short answer: I DON'T! Long answer: I find short cuts where ever I can. I'm going to start trying to publish my short cut ideas. Laundry will be the topic for my first in the short cut series.
Since I homeschool everyday from 8 AM until 2:30 PM. The rest of my day is spent cooking, eating cleaning up, etc. We clean the house on Saturday. We use to do laundry on Saturday too, but that was a problem because if there was ever a family activity on Saturday the house didn't get cleaned AND the laundry didn't get done...DISASTER. So, now we do laundry during the week. I don't have a whole day to devote to laundry so I do one or two loads a day. After breakfast, as I clean up the breakfast dishes my two oldest children (7 and 5) bring the dirty laundry down from the hamper in the bathroom. They sort the laundry (it's usually only about 10 things) and then they start one load of laundry. Sometime in the afternoon I switch the laundry over and start a second load and take the clean laundry upstairs. Folding happens in the evening while spending time with my husband. We've had many a serious discussion over laundry folding. We've also watched many a movie while folding laundry. That's much more fun than folding it by myself in the laundry room which is what my mother always did.
I trained my kids to do laundry using this chart:
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My kids know what to do with each load using this chart:
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Yes, I love making charts.
Love the charts - I hadn't thought of a laundry chart for the children. They can do basic sorting (whites in one pile, colors in a second pile, linens in a third). They also fold all their own clothes and put them away - which is huge for me! Like you, I do a load or two every day - just to hard to devote a whole day to it.
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