Dirty Cycle

In my house, there is a war of laundry that is always waging. It used to be that we had this tiny little stackable washer and dryer (that came with the town house) and I had to be doing a few loads every day just to keep up. Then last year for Christmas, Mark gave me a great set of front-loaders that I can jam full and ease my burden of constantly having to do small loads.

But these days, a vicious cycle has started and it is affecting everyone in the house, including the cats. As I am a master of multi-tasking, I toss a load of laundry in while I'm making breakfast or trying to clean up (clearly by the look of my home, this happens only rarely). But the only real time there is for folding it is while Eli is napping. Since over half of the load belongs to Eli and Marina, I can't put it away during nap time, so it gets stacked up on floor until I have a minute to go into their room. Unfortunately, when Eli gets up, I get caught up with snacks and toilet time, the clothes still do not get put away. Since Eli is awake and always extremely active, he finds it amusing to run through my piles and distribute them around the room in an effort to "help" Mommy. Then, after the clothes have been redistributed, the cats make their beds on a shirt or pair of pants here or there and fill them with hair. At this point, I usually pick them back up and fold them again and this time set them on the stairs or the landing in an attempt to remind myself to grab them the next time I go upstairs. But the day moves on and either I have a baby in my arms or I'm chasing Eli around so the clothes just clutter up the stairs, making a fire hazard. Then, because I am usually behind on my house tasks, another load of laundry goes in and out and the stacks grow and fall and ultimately get added to the stairs. Since we eventually run out of clothes, we resort to grabbing them from the stairs and make an even bigger mess. Yes, the clothes do eventually find their way back home to our closets, or on a bad day, they get thrown around and get re-washed, folded, thrown around, stacked, etc...

This is our own personal "laundry cycle". It never seems to end. And since there is no hope for a solution to this situation, it is likely to continue on until the day I die, or hire a cleaning lady that enjoys hard labor for a quarter a day.