Laundry

In an effort to make myself feel better about doing so little at home sometimes, I have started calculating how much laundry I do in a week.  The numbers even baffled me.  I smirk to myself when I hear of people complaining about doing the laundry when they have a small handful of people in their family.  I know, kind of prideful.  But if you realized how much laundry a family of 8 goes through...

• 112 socks a week (56 pairs).  And that's if everyone wears only one pair a day.
• 48 pairs of underwear (at least that's when kids change everyday like they're supposed to.  Matthew is still in diapers or it would be at least 56.
• Lets say kids we each wear 3 pairs of pants and 5 shirts a week  That's 56.  But Matthew wears at least one outfit a day so add another 8 onto that.  That makes it 64.  And then Sunday clothes - another 8.  So, we're now up to 72.
• Pajamas, well probably 24 sets.
• Towels, dishrags, washcloths, rags, between 40 and 50 a week is my estimation.

Lets see - so what does 112 socks, 42 undies, 72 shirts and pants, 24 pajamas, and 50 rags and towels equal?  Two days of running the washer, two hours of folding and sorting, and at least another hour of putting away.  Sigh...  I get tired just thinking about it!  Thank goodness for capable kids who can sort and run wash loads for me.  And they even sort and put things away too.  

Maybe it's worth it for those fun kids...