Laundry. Wait, What?!

"As working parents, sometimes all we can do is laugh and play the hand we're dealt. "

Sometimes it's the simple stuff that provides satisfaction (and bragging rights).

One year when the kids were little, we reported in our Christmas letter that each member of the family had worn clean underwear every day of the year. It felt like one of our biggest, and maybe most meaningful, accomplishments ;) I used that data point to convince myself that we were one of those really “together” families.

But then my husband, always intent on self improvement, told me he thought we ought to raise the bar for the next year. As the person in charge of laundry at our house, he thought I ought to commit myself to providing clothes that were not only clean, but dry too. (So maybe his underwear had been a little “damp” some mornings, but it was clean! And that seemed like the most important part to me.)

As working parents, sometimes all we can do is laugh and play the hand we're dealt. (Or in the case wear the clothes in the dryer - ready or not.)  At least that's what I told him on some of those days our clothes finished drying while we were on our way to work :)

Epilogue:
Years later, my son joined the junior high track team. During one of his meets he was running in a really strange manner. On the drive home, I asked him about it, and here's what he said, "You told me I should never wear dirty socks, so this was the first time I ever ran without socks."  The thing was, I was on top of the laundry! I was sure of it. That night I found about 12 pairs of dirty socks in a pile in the back of his closet. "I can't wash them if you don't throw them down the laundry chute!" I told him. As I said, sometimes all you can do is laugh.

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