A Life Skill Learned ~

About a week and a half ago my washing machine went kaput. I've had this same machine for 10 years and we've had it repaired about five times, so when I went to put a load of wash in and found the agitator floating in the tub, we decided it was time to upgrade to one of those fancy HE washers. Who knew that purchasing a new washer/dryer set would spark such excitement in our children. The next day R & K did laundry all day. It was like that laundry fairy people are always talking about on FB had shown up and sprinkled magic dust on my kiddos. Of course I supervised, but they did most of the work. It. Was. Awesome!

Fast Forward to the present day...R has finally decided that earning his own spending money might be kinda cool, so after much negotiations we have come to monetary agreements. I won't go into the details, but let's just say among other things, he is my new laundry man. As a mom I've had this worry that my children will grow up and leave home without certain skills; being able to do their own laundry being one of them.

Putting a picture of my laundry room in such a disaster is quite horrifying; however, this picture is important to the story. My type A personality has had to take a backseat to teaching my children this life lesson. Every ounce of my being wants to dive in and sort it all into neat little piles. I've tried to tell R how I do things...he's not interested in hearing it. He wants to do it his way and his way is making me CrAzY. We went to WalMart today and bought one of those hamper dillies that has four separate hampers. I think hope this is going to help.

I bought R a notebook the other day so he could write down all of his chores and what we have agreed to pay. I am the world's worst when it comes to having cash on hand to pay my kids for the work they do around here. What we've decided is his notebook will serve as a kind of bank register. He has down how much money he has and when he buys something (Legos yesterday, sunglasses today,) he writes it down making sure to also write down what he purchased. It seems we've finally found a system that is going to work for us. This makes me very happy!

So today as he was loading the washer with towels I told him it might be a good idea to go check the hampers and gather any towels that might have been used since he sorted the laundry two days ago. He was very disgusted with this idea and said, "If I have to check the hampers every time I start a load, I will never get caught up." I almost fell on the floor laughing...instead (very melodramatically kinda like what you would see in a reenactment of Romeo and Juliet) I said, "Welcome to my world child!"

Another funny thing that happened the other day:  while the kids were doing laundry together, K said, "Mom, why haven't you ever told us doing laundry was so much fun?"

I owe much thanks to Whirlpool for creating such a magnificent machine that has not only made laundry fun for my two little workers, but now I have the peace of mind in knowing that someday they will be able to wash and wear clean clothes. :)