Make Laundry Less Dreadful

I must be an anomaly because I don't hate laundry. I might lose a few friends over that statement, because laundry is the bane of most of my friends' existence. There are PLENTY of household chores that I dislike doing, and have a hard time getting done. The trash can might be over-flowing at my house because I detest taking the trash out, but I'm almost always caught up on laundry.

Everyone has always said "just wait until" you have a baby, or you have another baby, or your kids are in sports, etc. With each step, I haven't had a hard time keeping up with the laundry. When I had my first baby, we lived in Saint Louis city and had to take our laundry to the laundromat, and it still wasn't terrible. Sometimes I actually miss that because I could have so many loads of laundry being washed all at the same time! 

I think everyone would agree that washing the clothes is the easy part, although, remembering to move the laundry over can be tough too! The hardest part, in my opinion, is folding and putting the laundry away. 

I used to fold my laundry on the couch, but quickly learned it was impossible to keep little boys away from freshly folded piles of clothes. The folded laundry would quickly take up the entire couch, then I would get distracted with something urgent, and it would take a while to get back to the laundry folding. In the meantime, all the laundry would get unfolded and thrown around the room. For this reason, I started folding laundry on my bed.

Step 1: Turn on an audiobook, podcast, Netflix, or some music! Being distracted and entertained makes folding much more enjoyable! Some of our favorites podcasts are Brains On!, and The Read-Aloud Revival.

Step 2: Everything gets sorted into categories: Dad, Mom, Camden, Brayden, and socks/miscellaneous. This is a great way to involve the kids, my boys LOVE throwing the laundry in the correct pile. 

Step 3: I fold and put away one group at a time. This makes me feel like I'm making progress on the laundry quicker. It's also easier to leave the laundry to attend to another task if I don't have to protect tons of folded laundry piles. Sometimes that socks/miscellaneous pile takes a while to fold because the house seems to function alright if socks aren't put away immediately. 

It really helps me feel more accomplished if I can think, "I folded all of the laundry except for..." because I'm able to see how much I've done instead of just focus on how much laundry there still is to do. 

Happy folding!