blogginwoman: If You Give A Mom Some Dirty Laundry

I'm declaring a moratorium on laundry. I've done 3 loads a day for the past 4 days. The kick in my clean undies was when I opened the door to the laundry room this morning to find 3 more loads piled up in front of the washer. I'm going to have to regulate. Our laundry, like other critical jobs, needs the powers that be to set some rules, provide some standards or we're going to lose our pants. Well, our clean pants at least.

I'm going to have to be the laundry police. I'm no stranger to law enforcement as I'm also the homework police, the "turn the bathroom light off for pete's sake!" police, the "why is there dirty underwear in your closet and a candy wrapper under your bed?" police and the "wash your hands before you eat that" police. And now this. There are going to be tight inspections and more regulatory controls. Every piece of clothing will be inspected for filth before it is washed (underwear not included). Pants can be worn more than once, sweaters can be worn more than once, as a-matter-of-fact everything can be worn more than once except socks and skivvies unless you've got a fever or are spewing large amounts of mucus out of your nasal passages and wiping it on your sleeve. In that case I'm going to have to re-establish the snot police. (I thought we got away from that.) Our new household motto is going to be "Wear it again for pete's sake! You're not Governor Palin!" (That's just a joke, honey.)

This reminds me of the day when my kids were younger and the feat of a load of laundry was far too great for one very flustered mom. If you've ever read the book "If You Give A Mouse A Cookie" or one of the sequels "If You Give A Pig A Pancake" or "If You Give A Moose A Muffin", then you will appreciate my own version. Here's one from the archives:

If You Give A Mom Some Dirty Laundry…

She’ll feel the need to wash it. On the way to the laundry room she’ll realize her house is a pit. As she stops to contemplate how she’ll ever get it clean she’ll notice the dog scratching and whining at the back door. She’ll wonder why she ever got a dog. While she’s staring at the dog pondering why she ever got her she’s bound to notice the dirty, filthy window the dog has been putting her slimy nose against. Again, she’ll wonder why she got a dog. Since she is momentarily standing still her 6-year-old twin daughters will have to find her something to do like fixing them lunch and cleaning up the marker they left in the carpet. While she’s fixing lunch she’ll realize she never cleaned up after breakfast. Ignoring those dishes she’ll go to the refrigerator to find some lunch food. On the way to the refrigerator her sock will get stuck to some partially dried baby spit-up on the floor. She’ll wonder again why she got a dog. While fixing lunch for her twins her 6-month-old baby boy will begin to scream for his bottle. Being a good mom she’ll proceed to fix a bottle, make the twins lunch and stuff chips in her mouth so she doesn’t pass out from hunger. After feeding the twins and the baby she’ll start to doze off while burping the baby. She’ll be awakened by her fighting twins. She’ll yell at them to be quiet. Yelling at her kids will wake up the baby. All the screaming will remind her that her twins have to be at school in 10 minutes – THANK GOD!! She’ll load up the van with kids, backpacks and show-n-tell items. Loading up the van she’ll notice the crusty English muffin on the floor of the van. She will remind herself that she will clean the van – someday. Since she has paused too long to reflect on the English muffin the baby will begin to scream because he doesn’t want to be in the car seat. She’ll quickly remember that she’s going to drop off her twins at school – THANK GOD!! She’ll drop off the twins at school – before anyone gets hurt. She’ll drive home with a sleeping baby. She’ll leave the baby in the car seat hoping he’ll stay asleep. Thinking of sleep she’ll relax and realize she hasn’t peed in five hours. She’ll go back to the bathroom; there she'll trip over the other piles of dirty laundry she meant to wash 4 hours ago.