May 25, 2010

The Laundry Quandry

The split to two rooms has been a fairly smooth transition... except on laundry days. All four of the girls put their clothes in one laundry basket, which is fine. Unfortunately, when it's time to fold the clothes, I have a hard time remembering which outfit belongs to which girl. I know, I know... out of all the stress in my life, this isn't exactly high on the list. Still, it makes things tricky.
Each of the girls have certain articles of clothing that is "theirs." It may be Hello Kitty socks one received as a reward for landing on the prize spot of the chore chart or a Minnie Mouse shirt Santa gave another for Christmas. If those clothes end up in the wrong room and someone other than the owner wears those items... there are going to be plenty of tears. It's not that my daughters don't share, it's just that they take ownership of their things. I don't think that's a bad trait. When you're expected to share nearly everything you own with three other siblings, it's nice to have a few things that are just yours.
So on laundry day I separate everything into piles... underwear, socks, pants, shirts, etc. Then I have to go through the piles to figure out if there are any items that belong to a specific girl so I can make sure it ends up in the right room. I've made some mistakes, but I have four girls who are right there, ready to correct me!

8 comments:

Sadia said...

Have you considered having your girls put away the clothes? What if you put the piles between the rooms and gave them each a pile for which they're responsible for both identifying owners and putting things away? Jess is in charge of panties at our house, and Melly socks.

Quadmama said...

I know I should get them involved... it's just so much faster when I do it myself : ) But I think I need to try your suggestion to relieve some of the "stress" on me.

MaryAnne said...

I was going to suggest having them help put away the laundry too. Or you could do what my mom did once several of us were teenagers wearing roughly the same size clothing, and label clothes with initials using a sharpie pen.

MandyE (Twin Trials and Triumphs) said...

I learned a trick from my mom on sorting men's socks, and it might help in this situation. She would take a single stitch with colorful embroidery thread in the toe of all the socks in a given package. Then she would pair together the socks of the same age using the color code.

Could you assign a color to each of your daughters and make a stitch in the tag / hem / wherever?

...or maybe the thought of this makes the idea of your girls putting away their own clothes less complicated.

:)

Quadmama said...

I like your mom's trick Mandy. That seems simple enough.

Sadia said...

I like Mandy's trick too (although there's probably a military regulation out there preventing me from using it on Lucas'!).

Stephanie Barr said...

I was going to suggest getting your girls involved. I know, kids can be quite handy if they want to be and they are likely at the age that helping can be a source of pride. Even if you fold and they put them in the appropriate piles, they can really help.

Stephanie said...

I could see how that could be a huge problem for your girls and you. I agree with everyone else and say get them involved in helping put things away :)

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