Through the Eyes of My Laundry Basket

I once read that you can tell a lot about a person from their laundry room. (Well, I didn’t actually read that, but I’m pretty sure it’s true.) The girls are only 15 months old, and I realize that my laundry basket has already experienced quite the ride.

Before the girls were born, I meticulously washed each sweet little gown, every precious dress, and all the tiny pairs of socks, separated into many, many loads, by color. I remember thinking those newborn onesies were so tiny, and then I washed them, and they looked even tinier! Doing the babies’ laundry then was so novel and so much fun…and I felt so organized, folding everything just so.

For the first few weeks after the girls came home from the hospital, even amid the sleepless days and nights, my vigilance remained. I treated the smallest stain, even on burp cloths and wash cloths.

Eventually, as my hands began to dry from the OxiClean, I abandoned the need to treat stains on burp cloths and wash clothes, but my focus remained keen on any and all outfits and bibs.

When the girls were four months old, we began feeding them solids. The laundry evolved from having spit-up stains to giant globs of sweet potatoes and green beans. For the sake of my dry hands, it was at this point that I “invested” in some cheap-o onesies and bibs that I wouldn’t mind getting stained, although I continued to relentlessly pursue stain removal on all outfits. I also discovered that, by washing out the bibs immediately after the food fight (or, uh, meal), they required less treatment.

It was in the baby food phase that my wardrobe had to change, too. After having amassed an impressive collection of yoga pants and tops, I took to wearing the grungiest t-shirts and sweats I could find. The girls’ ability to blow sweet potatoes and green beans could leave quite the “impression”.

Eventually, the girls became pretty proficient with the baby food, and – while I wish I could say I broke them of the habit – at least I learned to somewhat anticipate their food blowing and seek cover accordingly. I began to dress them in outfits again, and I dusted off my yoga pants from the bottom drawer.

As with so many things, when I begin to feel a rhythm in one area, something else changes, upsetting the apple cart, which of course results in saucy apple stains…

Over the past couple of months, the girls have graduated to “big people food”, and a little more recently, to feeding said “big people food” to themselves. And so they’re back to wearing the cheap-o onesies. I’m still in yoga pants, as meatballs don’t lend themselves to “blowing” in the same way that pureed sweet potatoes do.

But I fear that the next chapter in the Tales from the Laundry Room may involve me mending some holes in the knees of my yoga pants. I seem to spend a lot of time these days crawling around on the floor cleaning up thrown (or, uh, inadvertently dropped) spaghetti.

So what’s next? I guess only time – and my washing machine – will tell.