Laundry, Laundry Everywhere

When my children were younger, they had toys everywhere.  I literally made a path through the house where toys were not allowed.  Along the path, I had baskets and piles and storage bins all filled with--you guessed it--toys.

At one point, I decided to use the trick where you store most of the toys and leave only a few out for the kiddos to enjoy.  That worked like a charm until my kids asked for their missing toys (the book said they would forget about them).  So, I would go into the toy stash and grab what was requested and close it back up.  However, once the kids knew where the stash was, the toy disaster continued.

Well now that the kiddos are teens and preteens, something new has replaced the children's toys--clothing.  It is everywhere--in the closets, in the hampers, in baskets, under the beds, in storage.  How is this possible?  How can children accumulate so many articles of clothing?  

In an attempt to cull back the clothing, I have tried many a strategies highlighted on Pinterest.  I purchased bed risers to add under the bed storage.  I have behind the door storage for shoes.  Each child has their own dresser.  The closet is divided into part a and part b with space up top for seasonal and down bottom for shoes and laundry.  However, there is still laundry, laundry everywhere--on the sofa, in the mud room, in the bathrooms, in the bedrooms.

I have spent countless hours organizing and fussing in efforts to get control of the laundry.  I wash towels daily, sheets weekly, and a load or more of clothes everyday.  For the older children, they have an assigned day to wash their own laundry.  However, that is not helping.  When they wash, they only have about two loads and sometimes I even have to combine clothing to make a full load.  So, why or why is there laundry, laundry everywhere?

I thought to myself that maybe the laundry is everywhere because I'm not washing fast enough.  However, I have sadly done the sniff test and am usually pleasantly surprised that the laundry accumulating in piles everywhere is clean (warning...  do not sniff undies under any circumstance).  So that leaves just one thing, the children are not putting away their laundry as instructed.

I sincerely hope that I am not the only parent who has had a meltdown and demanded that everyone stop what they are doing and clean up.  (If I am...  that will require another blog post).  When I do this, the children claim that I look crazy and that if I just ask nicely they will comply.  So, I keep my crazy face on and ask nicely--problem solved.

Well...  no...  it is not...  Apparently, there is laundry, laundry everywhere because we don't have enough space to store it all.  Every drawer is filled to capacity and organized aptly--underwear, pajamas, shirts, shorts in order from drawer one to four.  The hampers under the beds that contain sweaters, sweats, and extracurricular clothing are filled.  The up-top closet storage is filled with jeans, shirts, sweats, etc.  The closet has school uniforms, dresses, and "nice clothing" hanging perfectly.

So what gives?  Why is there laundry, laundry everywhere?  It appears that we have too much stuff.