Oh Laundry Boy!

When you have a baby, the doctors warn you to limit trips up and down the stairs (1-2 per day).  I take this very seriously.  After all, having a baby is a big deal and the body needs time to heal.  No sense in causing any unnecessary setbacks.

My husband and I live in the attic.  It's not a creepy attic, it's very nice.

So before the baby arrived, I got busy moving some clothes to the guest room on the second floor.  No sense in blowing my 2 flights of stairs just getting up and going to bed.  If we stayed on the second floor I'd have an extra trip tucked away in case of emergency (I told you I take this seriously).  

We have an older home (hence the attic) and our laundry room is really the basement. 

 And with babies comes laundry.  And with my babies comes lots of laundry because they spit up all day long.  So I knew if I were to take my stair limitations as seriously as I intended, I'd need to enlist some help.

That's when I got my laundry boy.  He's dashing, and he does perfect laundry.  He's my husband.  

Boy, I'm taking forever to tell you that my husband helped with the laundry.

He's helped many times before, but it's always sporadic because I like to be in control of it and it takes too long to explain it.  By the time I go over everything, I might as well just go down in the basement myself.  I know you know.  

Laundry Chute!

So here's where I got smart.  I made a laundry chart.  

Don't read this.  It's not even correct.  I need to make a new chart.

I listed the different types of loads, what temperature setting to use, when to add bleach, when to use dryer sheets, etc.  This way, I didn't have to explain anything.  And I couldn't get mad because my hormones were crazy and the baby was being fussy and the other kids were fighting and all the while my husband was asking me to explain how to wash the whites for the five millionth time.  See how this is useful?

And the best part is, now that I can do the stairs and everything again, my husband can STILL help.  

Like many women, I tend to think I can, and should, do everything myself.  I feel guilty not doing all the laundry because my husband's at work all day and I'm here (eating bonbons).  I can't possibly ask him to do a load of wash.  Except that's not a true picture of things.  My life is nuts (in the best way).  I need help.  Everyone needs help.

I've learned that my husband really wants to help.  It's a gift he wants to give to me.  I just need to be polite and accept this gift.  It's really no big deal to him if I ask him to run down and switch over the laundry every now and then.  Heck, some of those clothes are his.  And most of the rest belong to his children.  And then I get to feel loved AND I can sit on the couch and pop another bonbon.

And as a little post script: My husband had the great idea of putting a card table under the laundry chute so we can more easily sort and pre-treat our clothes.  I'm not the only one with good ideas around here.  And this goes to show that I need to enlist his help on more things.  Because two heads are better than one.  Especially when one is in a new-baby-fog.