Parenting: the lessons you don’t expect

One of the things that I was not prepared for with Alex, that has since been reinforced with Amelia, is that a small child produces as much, if not more laundry than a full grown adult. Typically Julie handles one or two loads during the week when she has a free moment, and we tackle it together on the weekends. I originally expected our son’s laundry to be once every few weeks, because his clothes are so much smaller.

I did not account for the messes and redresses .

Sure, it’s smaller, but there are a lot more of them. Like army ants.

Kids go through a lot of clothes. They make messes when they eat, they make messes when they go outside, they make messes when they stay inside. They have to wear extra layers to say warm because they have much less thermal mess, and all of that has to get washed. More than once has the kids laundry exceeded the adult laundry, and folding all of those tiny socks takes quite a bit of time.

And it’s all worth it.