Laundry in the Fish House

 Today is LAUNDRY DAY.  Here's what laundry day looks like for us.  My Man had the wonderful idea when he built our house that he would put a stacked washer and dryer upstairs for the Fish Stick's laundry.  How grateful I am that I no longer have to lug laundry up and down the stairs, although I'm sure my flab would appreciate a bit more lugging up and down.

My mom always had a laundry day. I remember the hallway being filled with laundry for the majority of the day as she sorted, washed, dried, folded and stacked for us to put away.  I did things like that for a long time and then added another laundry day as the family grew.  I'm not the best about completing the laundry 100% in a day.  I wish I did, but I forget to stay on top of the buzzer.  I throw the dry clothes on the couch, saying I will fold them later.  I leave folded laundry sitting in my closet or worst yet, I leave dry clothes in the dryer for days to be a big, wrinkly mess.

So back in August, I was revamping my daily schedule after sending 3 kids to school and only homeschooling 3 little ones.  I decided every Fish Stick would have their own laundry days.  Monday was the parents, Tuesday was the boys, Wednesday was the middle girls, Thursday was the oldest and youngest girls and then Friday was the parents again.  I gave it my best shot but honestly, my bad laundry habits listed above just worsened, not to mention I realized I didn't like doing laundry enough to spread it out into 5 days a week.

As part of my New Year's Resolution changes I decided to go back to the old way but commit to doing it better.  So far, so good.  Monday is LAUNDRY DAY!!  Whoo Hoo!!  All laundry upstairs hits the hallway the night before and I throw in a load as I am tucking all Fish Sticks in bed.  In the a.m. I throw in a downstairs load, switch a load upstairs and turn on the baby monitor.  I can hear the upstair's buzzer on the monitor and guess what?  I'm actually listening to the buzzer and jumping up to switch out the laundry when I hear it.  I also found that bringing dry clothes into my closet and hanging and putting away as I fold works much better for my bad procrastination habits of old.

As for the Fish Sticks, well they have 24 hours after all laundry is complete (beginning Monday night usually) to put their clothes in their dresser.  My 5 year old Fish Stick gets his sorted by his Mama to put up and my 3 year old Fish Stick gets her folded laundry handed to her so she can lay them in the opened drawer.  If the laundry is not put up in 24 hours, then the Fish Stick has to wash, dry, fold and put up their own laundry the following week.  Pretty motivating, huh?  It has only happened 3 times and oh, were they ever sad they forgot to put up their laundry!  Not too bad.