Adventures in Laundry As A Mother Of Four

My series is back with another installment!
In case you missed my other Surviving Motherhood with Four posts, here ya go!

Today we are going to explore the topic of LAUNDRY. Awww...fun, right? Here's the thing...in case you were wondering, four kids create a whole lot of laundry. I mean a whole lot. I used to do laundry on one or two days of the week. I would knock it all out and it would feel like an accomplishment! What a relief to have 6 more days of no laundry. Four kids later...not so much. Laundry has to be handled as a daily chore. And it is my beast of burden that I must carry through life. Ok...that is a bit dramatic, but it feels that way!!

Ya'll, I used to fantasize about having a beach house in Maine or a guest house out back...but now I fantasize about having THIS:

Isn't it a beauty? :) Somehow I am convinced that this set up would make laundry SO much more enjoyable. But would it really? You see we have four laundry baskets amongst the 6 of us... we have towels, we have rugs, we have sheets, we have whites and darks and fuzzy blankets, and bibs, and it just never ends. I can usually get a load in the washer and dryer in a day. But then it goes to The Basket. This is purgatory for clean laundry in our house. This is where it could sit for a day or three...depending on the week. This also means that when someone needs a pair of socks (times 6 people every.single. day), I will say "They are probably in The Basket." Somehow I feel so much better about myself that I have cleaned the clothes...putting them away is a whole nother chore that I just don't have the energy for a lot of the time...especially with a baby who is glued to my hip or crying during all waking hours. So The Basket is necessary when you have four kids. Of course sometimes you are forced to fold and put the clothes away because where are you going to put the new clean clothes that are coming out of the dryer. You could fold right out of the dryer and have your kids put clothes away OR you could get three baskets!

Not that we have done that or anything. ;)

And do not get me started on what happens to laundry that is left wet in the washing machine for 24 hours. Oh good gosh.

Now on my Good Wife days when I put the clothes away and look about and think WOW I was able to tackle the boys super stinky basket of clothes (what is with boys and their smell?!!) or I am so happy that I have a great big pile of clean bibs...it is inevitable that someone will wet a bed that night, or grass stain their jeans, or paint without a smock at preschool, or splash bath water ALL over the bathroom rug. Regardless of how much I may think I am done with laundry...I am not. It never ends. NEVER. Cause the clothes we have on right now will be dirty tonight. And I have to confess, this is mind numbing to me. And it is mind numbing to me that the socks all make it into the wash with their pair, yet half do not make it to The Basket with their mate. What is UP with that? Where do the socks go?!! I spend more money each month buying little tiny socks then I do toilet paper, I swear!

Then there is the dilemma with what to do when your bed wetting child leaves his wet pullup in his pajama pants and tosses them in the hamper. You all know where I am going with this. Broken soggy diaper bits in a washing machine is enough to send me running for the looney bin. I mean it is bad enough I have to do laundry every single day of my life. But NOW I have to clean out wet paper AND redo the load! AWWWW!

Or junk left in kid's pockets...oh it gets bad....it gets real bad.

There have actually been several times in the past couple years that I have seriously considered making my own laundry detergent, for "fun". No, really...people do that! Here is proof.
When I read that, I think to myself...hey I could really DO that! And maybe one day I will. But let's be honest here...for now I am quite busy just trying to get the skid marks out of my kid's briefs, the squash puree out of Jasmine's t-shirts, and the marker off Vivi's cuffs! Making laundry detergent can be left to the Moms with only one kid and a housekeeper.

For now I will go take my 3 year old's robe out of the hot dryer and wrap it around his freshly lotioned body as he smiles bigger than Christmas.

After all, there are some perks to laundry day!

Adventures in Bedtime As A Mother Of Four

Did y'all miss this series? I have explored Showering as a Mother of Four and Eating as a Mother of Four. Now on to that oh so precious commodity...SLEEP. If you are like me, you sometimes find yourself pining for the days when you could stay up to all odd hours and then sleep until lunchtime...at least on Saturdays, summer vacation, and holidays. Well...those of us with kids know those days are officially OVER. Because frankly by the time our kids are old enough to sleep in til noon themselves, we will be older and older people don't sleep in. I don't know why, but they don't. Some of you may be thinking "My kids sleep from 8:00 p.m. until 8:00 a.m...I have never gotten more sleep in my life!" But for the rest of us...this is for you!

Let us start with the evening. If you are a stay at home mom with any sense of sanity, your kids have a bedtime. You brush their teeth, read them books, say their prayers and tuck their sweet little hineys into their adorably arranged bedrooms... thinking you will close the door with a smile on every one's face and not see these little darlings until sun-up. If this is your dream, I am guessing that either a) you don't have any kids yet or b) you happened to be blessed with one of those rare infants that sleep well.

Reality is that you DO indeed have a bedtime in mind. The difference is, your kids do not. From the moment you announce "It's bedtime sweet children of mine! Let's go brush our teeth!!" you will then have to endure some whining, maybe some thrashing, definitely some bargaining "What?! But...but...we didn't get to do such and such....Moooommmm!!" Brushing their teeth could turn into feeding time at the zoo as you repeat "Open your mouth! Look up! No UP! Smile. No you are not done yet. Chewing on your toothbrush does NOT count!!!" And forget flossing. I mean really. Who has the energy for that after 13 hours spent with 4 kids. You instruct everyone to use the bathroom and FLUSH darn it... because you are so tired of flushing toilets you could scream!

Then into the bedroom you go hearing, "Mom will you read me this? The longest, most involved book on my bookshelf?" No, you say as you pull out a Mercer Mayer book and silently tell yourself to put the ginormous book into the garage sale pile...who gave that book to your child anyway? Surely some distant Aunt who knew she would not have to be here each night to read it! Moving on....so once the books have been read and the prayers (complete with giggles and noises and the glares that follow from you) have subsided. It is time to walk away. Right? No. It is time to answer the requests of "Can I have the flashlight? Where is my mouse stuffed animal? Is my good blanket in the wash? Mom! You know I have to have my blanket to sleep!!! It's too dark in here. It's too hot in here. I'm thirsty. Where are we going tomorrow?" You try to calmly answer all requests while inching your way out the door...finally closing it with a BIG sigh of relief.

All is quiet as you change into your pajamas, throw a load of laundry in the wash, mop up the lake of water in the bathroom from bath time. Sure, you have to go in a couple times when you hear fussing and say "what is your problem?" the answer is something like " I want Daddy...." Good Lord. But in general, things are going so well, you figure you can fix yourself a snack and watch Master Chef. Just as Gordon Ramsey is about to really lay into a competitor who had the audacity to cook a filet with a lighting torch...you hear a small, yet spookily close to your head, voice that makes you jump as though an intruder had entered the house..."Mommy. I have to go potty." What?!!! Didn't we go over all of our routine?! Ugggh. And they know this trumps ALL other delay tactics because no one wants to be changing bed sheets at 3 a.m. Ok...go potty. Flush the toilet and tuck yourself back in bed!

Finally, an hour or two of relief commences for the first time all day. When you head off to bed yourself after flushing all the toilets no one flushed in the last 3 hours...and finally collapse into the hope of sweet slumber....just beginning to drift off...the sudden and persistent sounds of the baby crying will suddenly jolt you awake. As you plod into the kitchen to make yet another midnight bottle, you come to the realization that you will. never. sleep. again. Welcome to motherhood with four.

Adventures In Eating As A Mother Of Four

Those of you Mamas with multiple children will totally relate to this post. The subject of Eating. Ahhhh....remember when that used to be fun? I really took this for granted before kids. You could go out with friends and order whatever you want. Dinner could last 2 or 3 hours. Now? Not so much.

Now, eating has had to become a well thought out process. For starters, breakfast is rarely partaken of. Between preparing and serving the masses...pouring syrup, getting a spoon for the kid who has suddenly decided they are not happy with a fork, cleaning up spilled juice, packing lunches, loading the dishwasher, wiping faces, feeding the baby, finding matching pairs of socks and shoes....there is NO time for Mommy breakfast.

If by chance, you are able to grab say...a cereal bar...suddenly the sound of the wrapper can be heard from across the house by the same children who ask WHAT? at every simple request. You all know what I am talking about. "Son, put your shoes away." "WHAT?" "Time to get dressed!" "WHAT?" "Who left their towel on the carpet?" "WHAT?" But try to open a small snack and suddenly these eagle earred children come running from who knows where calling out "Mom, what are you eating? What is in your mouth? Where did that come from? Can we have some? How come I didn't get that?" You shove what little is left into your mouth and look innocently around the room with a "What? Who me? Nothing is in my mouth!" and then shoo them off to go get dressed.

You have been known to eat in the pantry, with the door closed. You have been known to eat in the bathroom. You have been known to ask your husband to bring a pizza home after working late, but giving explicit instructions to leave it in the garage just in case your little beggars are not yet in bed. You have been known to collapse on the couch exhausted with some kind of savory contraband, ready to take your first tempting bite, when suddenly behind you is a little voice saying "what's that?" As you jump a mile and shove your treasure under couch cushions you say between gritted teeth, "aren't you supposed to be napping, oh sweet, adorable child of mine?"

On the occasions that you sit with your children to "enjoy" a meal together, your food goes from steaming hot to freezing cold in minutes as you serve, dice, chop, pour, retrieve ketchup, get napkins, refill drinks, and break up the "But I wanted the Toy Story plllllaaaattteeee!" arguments. You choke down a few sips of your drink and try to smile politely asking, "And how was your day at school?" while shoveling whatever will fit into your mouth before some little tot says they want what is on your plate, which happens to be the exact SAME thing on their plate.

You daydream about the days when your food was your food. Back when you could eat out without worrying about overpriced kids meals with cheap plastic toys or your son wolfing his hamburger down and then pointing at yours "you gonna eat that?". You miss the days when you could set a take home drink down on the table and not come back to slobbery kids sucking it down quickly before you notice. You miss being able to enjoy certain things in your food, like onions, garlic, spices, salt and pepper.


You don't remember when you last ate or what it was.

You have not had a hot meal since your oldest came home.

You will only visit an eating establishment if you have coupons for free food.

Samples at the grocery store are no longer a way to test the latest lunch meat. They are lunch.

You are convinced your baby knows the precise moment when you are about to eat, because she will wake out of a dead sleep and start wailing.

You are a mother of four....you are hungry.
But you will survive.

Surviving Motherhood With Four

A sweet blog reader of mine emailed me and said she was requesting a post on being the mother of four children. I smiled at that because honestly, it doesn't always feel like I am the mother of four, or that four is all that many kids. I read blogs of moms who homeschool 6 and 7 kids! But I also know motherhood is not a competition to see who can have the most kids, do the most with those kids, etc. So...for us, four kids is plenty of children...and does take some organizing and planning on a daily basis. So I am going to start a series that I will post on as it comes to me, titled Surviving Motherhood With Four. This may actually inspire me to do what I have wanted to do for sometime...create weekly menus, a weekly cleaning schedule, chore charts for the kids, a Reading Routine, Exercise with the kids, and a set library day each week. We will see. Having to blog about it might be my motivation!
Which would be good because I still feel like I am treading water!

So to kick off my series...here is post One!

Showering as a Mother of Four
Something that occured to me when my youngest was about 2 weeks old, is that I could not remember when I last had a shower. As I sat there pondering this...I also tried to plan when I would be able to take a shower. Between feedings, school drop-offs and pick-ups, laundry, vacuuming, dog care, grocery shopping, and more...there was not a good time of day to shower. When I would think to myself, "shower at the end of the day" suddenly in would pop..."but the baby needs a bath, and in the morning I will have to bathe Vivi so her curls will be fresh for school, and then the boys need a bath before bed or in the morning....or right after dinner...and what about all the dirt dangling from Oscar's hiney, somebody is going to need to bathe him before he sits on the couch...ahhhh. Too many washings needed to get in before me! In the morning Billy showers while I pack lunches and fix breakfast. Then he is suddenly ready to leave for work right when I think I can pause from the morning mayhem to take a shower.

So...I have come to this very important conclusion:

A mother of four has to fight for her right to shower.

Noone is going to suggest you take a shower because then they would have to fend for themselves for the 7 minutes you are in there. They would rather put up with your greasy hair and body odor. It's true. So as a mother of four (or one or two), you will sometimes have to loudly announce to all that can hear "I am NOW taking a shower!"

Now in the beginning I would dash to get my towel, jump in while the water was still heating up, kick aside bath toys and hope I don't fall to my death, then hurriedly shiver through my routine of face wash,rinse,shampoo, rinse, conditioner, body wash, rinse, towel off, throw on my robe, and call myself the queen of speed showers.

Not anymore, people. This Mama has wised up. Now I leisurely choose the fluffiest towel, empty the tub of ALL child bath paraphenelia. Let the water fully heat up while I check out my roots in the mirror and wistfully remember the days when I could afford to be blonde. Then I step in and begin my routine, fixing the sprayer to just the right pressure. This is where one has to block out the world. Don't worry about your baby who is having to fend for herself on the couch with a pacifier while her dad uploads NPR to his Ipod. Don't fret that noone is cleaning the syrup off your 3 year old's hands before he rolls all over the couch. Ignore your oldest banging on the door and saying "is it my turn yet?" And dare to do what no mother of four has the time for anymore....SHAVE.

Shave your entire legs...that's right, not just from the knee down. Shave them twice. Shave things that don't need shaving. Keep shaving...because when your husband cracks the bathroom door and says "I really have to go to work now," the only thing that will prolong this moment of peace is to politely say, "I'm shaving." Husbands like that. They will allow you a few more minutes in the coveted shower. I promise. It works every time.