Soothing Effects of Laundry
Last night, at 10:30 p.m., I was in my pajamas, scooping up as many Duplos as I could and doing a quick list check in my head. What was on the agenda for tomorrow? Answer: I couldn’t remember. How were we on diapers? Answer: poor. That kid needs to get potty trained so I can stop purchasing them. Can I just please cut off the lights and go to sleep? Answer: No. You definitely have a load of laundry in the washer. Remember? You put it in after the kids found the watercolors and did their own painting projects. Unsupervised while you tried to fit in 30 minutes of fitness. Ugh.
I dragged myself downstairs, checked my Garmin for my steps (the upside of small children is you will make the minimum regardless of what you’re doing during the day) and opened the washer. Separated hanging clothes from dryer clothes, hung up wet clothes and cheerfully opened the dryer. I was almost done…not. Not done at all. A huge looming pile of shirts, socks and underwear stared at me as I vaguely remembered a conversation with Matt earlier in the morning about the lack of t-shirts in his drawers.
“Do you know where they are?” He asked, opening and closing drawers.
“Um, no. I haven’t seen them.” I said. This was true, because I had forgotten about the last load of laundry I did that had all of them in it. If you forget, it pretty much doesn’t exist anymore in my world.
On the upside, here was everyone’s clothing, I thought. On the downside, because of my OCD tendencies when it comes to laundry, I would now be spending the next while folding the tiny socks and shirts and all the things that were lurking in there. I sighed, grabbing a laundry basket and filling it up, my body beginning to ache from being on my feet for the last eight hours straight.
I had a poor attitude going upstairs. Just once, I thought, I would like to have the house picked up and everything done before 11 p.m. Which made me wonder how many people with children under 10 have that same thought. We spend so much energy on these little people. We love on them, but we also have to handle logistics. We have to handle meal planning and prep, transportation to and from a dozen places, entertainment on the Lido deck, refereeing because why can’t people just keep their hands to themselves and play with something their sibling is not, medical treatment for a variety of cuts, bruises and ego hurts, being a psychologist, a teacher, we take a break to wonder what they will say to their therapist about us one day, and we also need a minute to lay our head down on the counter and pray for patience and strength to make it through and appreciate the little moments that are hilarious and endearing and fleeting. Yes. We do ALL OF THOSE THINGS. If you think we don’t, ask your mama.
I sat down on the bed and dumped out the laundry basket, which thrilled Matt. I turned on our TV, and set up something to watch that is completely not child friendly. And I began to fold. And fold, and sort, and fold. Matt grabbed some stuff from the pile and folded to, to his credit. It’s nice when we have #goals like clearing off our bed so we can sleep on it. Plus it meant he had a fresh stack of gray t-shirts to go through.
As I folded, I could feel my back relax some, and it became a rhythmic exercise. A meditation on motherhood. That this was my “rest”. That this was a sort of break, and also a connection between me and the little people that Matt and I work hard to keep going every single day. With everything else in our world, the growth of our children shows so quickly in their clothes. I remember folding up the tiniest socks (and losing so many of them until a friend taught me to throw all tiny socks in to a delicates bag- GENIUS), and sleepers and so many burp cloths. Now it’s t-shirts (permanently stained ones for my sweet two year old), and dresses with sparkly skirts (for a child who will most likely one day wake up and no longer believe she is a princess), and my old college t-shirts that I still wear. Don’t judge me. I’m in workout clothes most of my days right now.
I finished folding and carefully set the piles down in the laundry basket. There was still stuff scattered throughout our home, and I had not packed lunches for the next day. The clothes folding, though? It would make Marie Kondo proud. Thank you socks and Good Night.
