Mount Washmore

This is a picture I never thought I'd take. I mean, who takes a picture of their laundry? But this time, I wanted permanent, photographic proof that I actually do get the laundry done, and on a regular basis...even though no one would ever know by the next day. Don't freak out. I don't usually have this much to fold all at once. This is because we were getting ready to pack for a weekend at Grandma & Grandpa's house, so I was working really hard all that day to make sure I got it all done because:

1. I needed to know everyone had clean undies, jammies and socks, and their nice clothes were clean, too
2. I knew we would be bringing home three days of dirty laundry, so I wanted to be ahead when we got back.

This doesn't even represent all the laundry that day. You do not see the towels, the bed linens, the cloth diapers, any dresses or dress slacks or anything that gets ironed and hung up.

After I had it all done and ready to put away, I had to laugh. This is really typical of where my children are at in life:

Hryum only changes his socks and underwear, and those only with constant reminders from me (I continue to be amazed with how...frugal boys are with their hygiene efforts!)...and he almost never gets anything from his bedroom floor to the laundry basket.

Gabriella changes her smalls daily, and has *thankfully* moved beyond the need to update her look hourly.

Lucy - however - changes all the time. If I have music playing, she'll even go change for each new song. It's true! I think she would have seizures if she had to be too far from her clothing for more than a day. And this photo does not reflect the number of costumes that get thrown into the mix. 24 hours after this picture was taken, Lucy had NO CLEAN PANTS IN HER DRAWER. [insert sound of repressed rage here]

Eliza changes more than anyone else. Her pile is the tallest by far. She changes for all the reasons listed for Lucy, plus all the reasons that she is four: still spills food all over herself, still has occasional potty oopsies, etcetera.

And now Miss Yvette is poised to overtake Eliza. She follows her older sisters in their fashion obsession, every whit. But now she has learned how to open her drawer. It's all downhill from here.

And George? Well, you know. He's a baby. He can go days without getting a thing on one outfit - and yeah, I leave him in it - and then he will poop all over five sets of clothing in one day. But I don't mind doing his laundry. Because I know, when he's Hyrum's age, he'll make up for lost time and never, ever change his shirt.

If you think I'm obsessing, you're absolutely right. But only because my dryer is not drying. Again. And Mark has been so crazy-busy, he hasn't had time to do his manly diagnostic thing (let's hear it for handy husbands!). I am seriously crippled by this. It's Thursday, and I haven't done a stitch of laundry since, uhm, last Friday, when this picture was taken.

And thus, I am off to the Laundr-O-Mat today with my twelve heavy loads of clean-yet-wet clothing and a box of dryer sheets, to spend A) an hour monopolizing all the commercial-sized dryers and B) my weight in quarters. Because we're all running low on socks.