How I Do It…the Laundry, pt 2

Posted on November 20, 2009 by Robyn

Today’s “How I Do It” post is the part 2 post about how I do the laundry. I mentioned most of my little tricks in the part 1 post, but today’s trick is the absolute best part of my laundry routine.

I don’t know about you, but for me, the most difficult part of the laundry is getting It put away. I can wash, dry and even fold laundry cheerfully all throughout the day, but getting it put away is extremely difficult. There are just too many places to take it all, I’d have to put on a brown suit and be the UPS deliverer to manage it all in our house!

But don’t worry about me…about two years ago, I fixed that problem! A friend and her mom had stopped by for a visit. We were discussing the laundry issue, probably because mine was all piled up (not put away) in my laundry room, and my friend’s mom mentioned that if she could do it over, she would build a large laundry room with a bathroom attached and have everyone just get dressed in the laundry room. Later that day, as I stood amongst my piles of folded laundry, ding…ding…ding…the bells and lights went on! I have a large laundry area with a bathroom sort of connected. AND, my kids were already stripping there each morning as it is a “hub” bathroom next to the kitchen. All I needed was a place to store their clothes and I would have the perfect laundry cycle! Clothes would come off those cute little bodies, go directly into the dirty hamper, to the wash, then the dryer, folded as I pull them out of the dryer and then….DIRECTLY in to their dressers, then back on to those cute little bodies. VOILA!! Definitely, definitely has been one of the best household changes I ever made! Because I wasn’t sure if it would work long term, I bought plastic storage drawer sets for the clothes and tucked them under a counter. That is what I am still using today, though I may consider putting in permanent dressers one day.

Hotel laundry icon used courtesy of public-domain-photos.com

If you have any capacity to do something similar, I highly recommend that you try it. My older kids are now taking their own clothes upstairs and putting them away themselves. They now prefer to dress in their rooms. And, I didn’t really have enough space to have everyone’s clothes in my laundry area.

One other little trick that I did not mention is the folding thing. I have always folded my laundry as I pull it out of the dryer, even before my new laundry method. I have found that it saves me time and effort, I am much faster at getting it done and it takes out a few steps of rearranging folded piles. It also forces me to get the clothes put away, instead of creating the dreaded Mt Laundry.

So, that’s it for my laundry techniques for now. I am guessing that in a few years as my kids grow older, I will have a new method. Maybe, just maybe…it will involve even less of me!

Note: Hotel laundry icon used courtesy of public-domain-photos.com

How I do…the Laundry! Part 1

Posted on October 30, 2009 by Robyn

With nine children, we have a tremendous amount of laundry. Fortunately for me, doing the laundry is my favorite household chore. For whatever insane reason, seeing all those cute little clothes and remembering how the kids looked or what they were doing in those little clothes is a treat for me. However, I can not say that it is what I would prefer to be doing for so much of my time!

At the current time I am up to two loads of laundry a day. I always forget how much extra laundry a baby generates. Even though his clothes are so little, the spit-up always winds up on my clothes…and my towels, and his blankets, and the floors (but that is for another post). My usual routine is to do some laundry at night and some in the morning.

So, over the years I have developed some great methods to ease the laundry load (pun intended!).

1. I have learned to not be too particular about the shape of the clothes when I put them in the wash. I pre-treat very little. This is not the “perfect” method, as some stains become permanent, but it does move the laundry along much faster. I also do not pre-straighten the clothes. Meaning that I do not put them all “right side out” each time. Because I have so many little ones and I teach them to be independent as soon as possible, I wind up with lots of little inside-out clothes in the hamper. Most of the time I just put them in as is, I have found that it is much more pleasant to put them right-side-out after they have been washed and dried and are smelling very fresh!

2. I separate only for light and dark loads. I don’t have the time nor the space to save up for a bleach load, though I do try to do one every so often.

3. I have a Fischer & Pykel washer and dryer set – that I love! The washer is energy efficient and spins most of the wetness out of the clothes. This makes the dryer time much shorter. The dryer takes only a little longer than a wash load. I can really power through some laundry since they both finish almost at the same time.

4. The Fisher & Pykel set also has a delayed timer on the washer – love that too! I can put a load in at night and time it to wash in the morning. This has been so great for me in the cyling of the laundry.

Laundry icon is used courtesy of pdclipart.org

5. My most recent laundry advancement has been to become a “stuffer”. I was sooo not a ‘stuffer” just a few months ago, but then my mom (by marriage) came to visit one time when I had Mount Laundry erupting. That lady turned six of my loads into three loads of laundry! I couldn’t believe it, nor could I watch it at first. I was initially shocked that she would stuff so much laundry in the wash. I mean, didn’t she know that the clothes needed to slosh around in order to get clean? Fortunately, I held my tongue and walked out of the laundry domain. After some time of deep reflection and upon consulting a close friend (who was also a closet stuffer), I stepped past my skepticism and … well… I started to “stuff”. And I have been stuffing ever since. I have not noticed any difference in the cleanliness of the clothes, so I just can’t stop!

My most treasured laundry secret is in the folding and the putting away realm. I will post about that next!

And I couldn’t end this post without mentioning that I usually have several helpers. My littlest kids (2-4 year olds) will hand me the laundry or help move it into the dryer. My oldest kids (6-9) can load the washer and the dryer, but they can’t always reach the buttons! Even though my kids are capable of doing the laundry, I don’t usually have them doing it. As I mentioned earlier, the laundry is one of my favorite household chores, so I would rather have them be doing some other chore and save the laundry for me. It is also working well that I do half at night and half in the morning, so they are usually sleeping or doing other chores.

Note: Laundry icon is used courtesy of pdclipart.org

How I Do…a sick routine with 9 children.

Posted on October 23, 2009 by Robyn

Since Dave already mentioned in his last post that we were getting sick, I thought that I would continue the theme.

Yes – they have all been sick this week. It started Monday, and is hopefully ending tomorrow. This was a fast one! This virus (OK, probably is the swine flu) came on like a fast train, raged with high fevers for 24-48 hours, then left the station with some lingering coughs. Hopefully it is a ONE-WAY passage for us and it will not cycle back.

So, how do I manage 9 sick kids and what do I do when they get sick? As David mentioned before, we don’t get sick very often, but it does happen and each time I have to decide…to quarantine or share the germs. I have never been able to fully quarantine, as it would break my heart to see one lone kid not being able to share life with the rest of the house. So, viruses usually wind up getting to everybody. The factor then becomes how quickly it spreads! I am usually really tempted to sit them all down and have them lick each other and drink from one slobbery straw – just kidding.

This is how our usual sick routine goes…

Somebody gets sick.

Little Nurse image used courtesy of reusableart.com

They are sent to the couch for the day with blankets, pillows, favorite toys, fluids (not usually allowed in the family room) and lots of extra TLC from everyone.

Depending on who it is that is sick and the age, the videos usually go on. And here – I let go of the “mommy guilt”. I do not let them watch very much TV, but when they are sick, they need to rest. And, who can rest when you’ve got a house full of cool siblings to play with. We are like an everyday party day at our house! So, the videos go on to keep the sick one entertained and restive. Of course, all of the others support their downed sibling by watching also (right! they all love it when someone is sick and they all get to watch videos!).

I then make the pot of chicken soup, sometimes homemade, sometimes Campbell’s, and sometimes OodlesofNoodles – chicken flavored of course!

Orange juice (not watered down) and oranges are standards, along with popsicles and Jello. And I also give double dosed vitamins, just in case and mostly because they love to take them.

To try and decrease some of the germ spread, we use Bandettes – the sippy cup labels - (which we use all the time anyway) and I spray lots of Lysol on the most frequently touched areas. I would use a Bleach solution, but I can not go anywhere near bleach without it leaping from the bottle on to my clothes, leaving that telltale blop of pure white.

The biggest thing that I do is brace myself to survive! I lower my expectations of getting things done, and I try to be there for my kids. I know that they are going to not be feeling good, AKA – whiny and needy, so I mentally prepare for the constant onslaught and lighten things up everywhere else on my agenda.

This week was actually very, very good for us. Barring a relapse, we totally conquered this virus – 9 kids in 5 da

This picture was taken from Heur et malheur (fortune good and bad), by E. d'Erwin, illustrated by H. Castelli, Paris 1877. Image used courtesy of oldbookillustrations.com.

ys…not bad!

Note: Little Nurse image used courtesy of reusableart.com; The “doctor’s call” picture was taken from Heur et malheur (fortune good and bad), by E. d’Erwin, illustrated by H. Castelli, Paris 1877. Image used courtesy of oldbookillustrations.com.