Do you ever have trouble deciding which things you need to keep and which to toss? I sure do. It's easier just to stick something aside than to actually deal with it and judge whether it is worth keeping. Clothing is a major issue in our house. I have five kids, right? So let's say that each of them has five pairs of shoes, then that's twenty-five pairs of shoes (fifty total). My tiny mind starts to boggle.
I read on a forum once about a mom with five or six kids who went through all her kids' clothing and kept a weeks' worth of items for each. I'm talking about seven shirts, seven undies, seven pairs of socks, seven pants/skirts, a couple pairs of pajamas, and maybe a set of nicer clothes for church. AND THAT'S IT. The idea is so appealing to me, with it's logical, black-and-white reasoning.
But then, when I try to sit down and figure out what we would need in a typical week, I invariably get stuck. What is a typical week, anyway? What if we get behind on laundry, do they go nekkid? What would we do about winter/summer wardrobes? Coats and snow boots, bathing suits, and the like? What about when a kid loses their jacket? Don't we need a few spares kicking around to replace it until we find it?
Think about socks. Wouldn't it be simple and easy to have seven or eight boring pairs of socks for each kid, and call it good? But wait, what about for church? Little girls can't wear thick white athletic socks with little dainty Mary Janes, can they? And aren't fun socks one of life's little luxuries? STRIPY SOCKS, people. It's one of my obsessions.
Then, when I try to pare down a child's wardrobe, so much baggage gets in the way. I may not particularly like something, but if it was a gift, or if the kid really loves it, I can't just get rid of it, can I? Ivy and Loch, especially, seem to never have decent-looking clothing that fits them properly. We are always running out of pants or shirts for one of them, but their drawers are packed full. How does this work?
This all leaves their bedroom littered with dirty clothes. The dirty clothes basket is woefully inadequate and always overflowing. I wash two to three loads of clothes every day, and usually end up folding them, because if I don't, they end up in the floor and then the dirty laundry again before even being worn. THIS DRIVES ME CRAZY.
What also drives me crazy is the knowledge that if I did manage to be on top of the laundry, we wouldn't have enough space to store all the clothes if they were clean all at once. I don't want more places to put things, I want to know how to have less things in a reasonable, non threatening (to a borderline packrat) sort of way.
So how do I draw the line between enough and too much?
Art History Sunday: The Blind Girl
8 years ago
7 comments:
I got so behind on laundry once that it took me 3 days of laundry all day long to get it all washed and folded.
The biggest mess in my girls room is clothing on the floor, not toys.
And I was sure that much of the laundry I was washing hadn't actually been worn.
I declared we had too many clothes. Here's what I did. First, I didn't put any of the laundry I washed away in dressers. I had it in piles in the laundry room. I assumed that anything still in the kids drawers at this point was stuff they NEVER wore because I hadn't done laundry for like 2 weeks. I went to their drawers and pulled everything out still in them and either put in in the "go to crosslines pile" or the "Save for winter pile" as it happened to be late spring at the time. This was hard for me because most of what was in their drawers at this point was stuff I like that I wish they would wear, but they don't. I decided to let some other mother have the joy of dressing her kids in those clothes.
Next I went through each kid's pile of clean laundry and chose 5 school outfits. I let them help me. I tossed out any clothes with holes or stains and said, A__, you can pick 5 shirts and 5 pants/skirts from this pile. Then I put together 2 play outfits, letting the kids keep beloved, but worn clothing for this--only after making them promise not to wear the ratty clothes to school. I did not limit socks or underwear--you can never have enough of those. I had everyone pick 1 hoodie/jacket and put the rest in the crosslines pile or the save for later pile. I put away all the wintery Sunday Clothes.
I cheated and let each kid have 1 or 2 more outfits, but that is it!
So 9 total outfits not counting sunday clothes and 1 or 2 sets PJ's --even if I only do laundry once a week, they have enough clothing to last.
Doing this drastically reduced my laundry load. It made it so the kids clothes actually fit in their drawers--which in turn reduced the amount of clothing on the floor.
SO WORTH IT!!!
I admitt it is harder in the winter time for me to restrict outfits. The weather is so changeable that more options are needed. And we just got an influx of hand-me-downs, so I need to go through everyone's drawers again and reduce.
I did make myself stop feeling guilty about getting rid of clothing that other people spent money on and gave to my kids. My sanity is a higher priority :)
The same thing works in the kitchen. get rid of all the extra cups and you'll suddenly have much fewer dishes to wash.
p.s. If you only have 1 jacket then you have to find it. So you find it. No need for an extra.
I posted a huge long comment and just as it went through it said something about being too long and error. Did you get it?
Rebecca, I got your excellent comments, but when I signed on to publish them, my blog was giving me a bunch of crap about cookies and stuff.
It works today, and thanks!
I second the socks and panties. You can't EVER have enough of them. They are always wearing out and getting ratty.
Sarah and Caroline are down to 3-4 pairs of pants each. Granted they are old enough to take care of them BUT it is way better. All my kids 11 and up do their own laundry now. I gave them each a basket and a towel with their name on it. On "their" day the wash their cloths and fold and put them away. If they don't, the get stuck folding and putting away all the other laundry. Now I know at a glance who left their towel on the floor. My mom said that she had one towel growing up and you took care of it because it had to last all week. The kids each have a hook in the their room too and one in the back entry. There is a place for their PJ's, towel, and jackets. They have one jacket and one coat.
This said.... We have declaird war today and are blasting our way through their rooms. Yay for mom and dad war on a snow day!
I agree with everything that has already been said. Having 6 kids I NEVER thought that most of the mess in a house could be laundry! I went through my kids clothes and let the boys each have 8 bottoms, 5 short sleeve tops, 5 long sleeve tops, 1 jacket and 1 coat. The girls got the same amount as the boys plus a few more bottoms like 3 skirts, and 2 tank tops for layering under other tops. I didn't limit socks and underwear, but as for shoes they got 1 pair of tennis shoes, 1 pair of dress shoes (girls got 2...1 black, 1 white), 1 shoe I didn't care what they did in, 1 pair of flip flops and 1 pair of rain boots. Yeah that might be extreme in the amount of shoes per kid but that is what works for us. They also each got 2 towels that were a specific color for each kid. They all do their own laundry starting at age 4, granted I help until they are 5 or until I feel they can do it on their own. There are weeks that they choose not to do their laundry on their day to do their laundry, but within a day or two the realize they hate wearing dirty clothes and they do their laundry.
I noticed that when they had more clothes then they needed they would always seem to lose their favorite pair of shoes or their favorite shirt or their jacket. Now they don't have that problem.
Guys, you are all rocking my world here. I am so tired of being knee-deep in laundry, and the kids never being able to find cute clothes that match.
I am SO going to take drastic measures!
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