Landry AKA Mount Everest

Mary left an interesting comment on my blog asking for advice on laundry. Oodles and oodles of laundry - the kind of laundry only a large family, especially one with lots of young kids, can generate.

Here is the crux of Mary's problem:

I am a homeschooling mom of 5 little children all under 7 years old....

So, anyway, my question is: do you have a set number of pants/shirts (not including Sunday best clothes) but every day clothes. Do you have the kids in uniforms? With all the changes of the seasons, we have such a huge amount of shorts/t-shirts/pants/shorts

/sweaters etc…the list could go on.

Do you have any type of system that works for you?

I know of another mom who has ONLY 5 OUTFITS-per child per season-hung on hangers-1 per day. They wear them stains and all.

I am a bit on the fence about this….well it is tempting to get rid of most of the kids’ clothes to just have 5! But I do like to see my children dressed nicely without all those stains(if I can help it).

Overwhelmed with the laundry loads, I figured I would ask you and I can’t wait to hear what you (or others) have to say about this deal.

Thanks in advance!!!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to your family!!!

God Bless you,

Mary

Here, at last, is my promised answer to you Mary.

I have tried a variety of systems. I have tried only having a specific number of outfits per child per season as your friend does - but there is a set back to this as insinuated with the " stains and all" comment. So I tried doing that with back ups put aside in my closet, or in a storage closet, but then when you need them they smell like, well stale laundry.

I have also struggled, as you do, with the feast or famine of donations. Because one can never be sure when the next drought might strike - you never like to say no to an offer of clothing. And then some seasons you get an overload of say, size six and absolutely no size eights so there is the temptation to hoard against the future. But I have learned to go with the ebb and flow of the donations and to not keep things that I do not believe I can use within one year of receiving - trusting to the Lord to provide when the need occurs.

I have a few ideas I can share with you - some I am currently using and some I am no longer using but might work for you, and at least one I am doing that you might not want to try until your children are older.

I will start with the one thing I am currently doing but your children are probably not old enough to do yet. Once my children are tall enough to reach the back of the washer and dryer and so the dials - I begin to teach them how to do their own laundry. They learn to sort their clothes and they learn how to use the machines. Each bedroom has their own laundry day with one day of the week free from laundry. They also learn what happens if they miss their assigned laundry day - no clean clothes!

Is not a perfect system but it works fairly well and when I notice the washer has finished and throw a child's clothes into the dryer for them - I am rewarded with a large smile and a huge thank you.

However, something your children can start to learn with you when they get ready for bed each evening is how to sort their clothes. I have used a white basket hamper for the lights with a darker one for darks.

To deal with the challenge of the change of seasons, I have begun purchasing the huge zip lock bags. I like that you can see through them and that they seem to be quite durable. When the season begins to change I keep them near the laundry area and as we make our way through the laundry the bags are slowly filled. I assign a bag to each room, but one for each teen. In other word the three boys rooming together get one bag and the two little girls get one bag but the two teens bunking together - each get one. They have more clothes and the individual articles are larger in size as well. When the bag is full I put them away in the corresponding bedroom's large closet. We have been so blessed with awesome closets in this house.

A suggestion I have not implemented but hope to soon, is to use baskets of different colours to indicate whether the laundry in the laundry room is fresh or waiting to be washed.

One disadvantage to the system I use of teaching the children to be independent with the laundry is that we sometimes experience a back up or over flow in the laundry area. And others waiting their turn for the facilities do not always know what has been washed and what hasn't. If the child before them is not around to clarify the situation we can end up with dirty clothes mixed with clean. This can be compounded by the general laundry, such towels, being left in the laundry area so I am hoping to be able to budget for some colour co-ordinated baskets soon.

My intention is to use a light coloured hamper for clean clothes and a dark one for dirty in hopes of preventing some of this confusion.

Now as to the number of articles of clothing, I do try to keep it somewhat limited but not as strictly as I once did. If I can't fit all of the clothing for one child in one large dresser and their alloted closet space, I know we have gone overboard. I have one drawer assigned for good clothes per child in his or her dresser. I also keep some good clothes separate in my closet for the younger children so that I know for sure that they have a good out fit for Sundays. When I have a special occasion coming up I do this for some of the older children as well. (Not the teens though) This removes some of the stress when preparing for the special occasion.

As I mentioned when I described how the older children learn to do their own laundry, each bedroom has their laundry day. This is something you could try to implement, it helps me a lot although on occasion we can get thrown off by being away on someones laundry day, that free days helps and when I know ahead we will be away, we try to squeeze a small extra load in ahead of the missed day.

I hope that some of these ideas help you Mary. I pray that one day soon you are able to tame your Mount Everest. Please, if any other readers have some ideas or solutions that have helped you - please feel free to share them with Mary and I in the comment section.

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I am spoiled...

... I really am. I look at awesome pictures from various blogs and admire the pretty snow. And I sigh at my romantic memories of sliding with the children. Bundling them up to take for a walk, pulling whoever was the current baby behind me in a sled. Catching small snowflakes on both my tongue and eyelashes. Watching children create snow angles, smiling as I remembered my own attempts, in vain, to get up without messing up my angel.

But then we have spots of weather down here in NC when it is so warm that I have to open the van windows if I am out driving - like I had to tonight. There was a softness to the fresh air and I glanced at the porches filled with laughing couples and families enjoying this spring like weather as I passed them driving home from visiting my boys.

And I realized just how spoiled I have become - how used I have become to such gentle and happy days such as this one today, here in the south. Or maybe I am just acclimatizing to my southern home where I have resided now for eleven full years. Regardless of what it is - I felt so grateful tonight for the taste of spring we have been granted several times this winter. Read more!

Heatless but not hopeless...

Our house is again without heat on the main floor and the temperatures dipped to -9 celcius last night. (15.8 F) BRRRRRR!!! But despite being heatless, I am not hopeless as I face the New Year. Never mind that my repeated attempts to establish a family rule has failed over and over again the past three years. Some of my readers might be scratching their heads and asking what is a Family Rule and why would you want one?

I find it easiest to answer this question by quoting the author of a Mother's Rule of Life?

"A rule is, and will always remain, a response to the call of God - a means of fidelity to one's vocation as a mother; a way to ensure that one's basic calling is being met with conscious care and a reasonable attempt to meet the many and varied needs of self, husband, family and home -- in such a way as to reduce unnecessary emotional turmoil or physical & psychological stress But instead, to have this valid tool as a means of living motherhood in a life-giving and self-offering way. This is the route of love." (To read the question and its full answer that this quote is from - click here.)

I read A Mother's Rule of Life a few months after a Priest, in the confessional, remarked that our family life needed to resemble that of a rule - perhaps the Benedictine Rule. 'There are so many individuals, varying needs and schedules to try to meet and adjust to, that in your life is almost like that of a monastery and you should try implementing a rule - maybe the Benedictine Rule.' Obedient confessor that I am, I immediately began to research this particular rule and shortly after came across Holly's book - A Mother's Rule of Life.

Since then I have come to know Holly Pierlot and we joined together to begin an online google support group and this lead to Holly directing an online workshop for us that was recently released as a workbook (To view a sample click here or to purchase - click here and a review of this book can be read here.)

Despite having read the book and worked through parts of the workshop and reviewing the workshop again when I helped Holly to compile it into the workbook, I still find myself failing when I attempt to implement my family rule over and over. Why, I have had to ask myself, is this so?

I have come to the conclusion that I always try to change, as well as implement, too many things at once. I become overwhelmed and give up. As well, our family is/has been facing trying times for the past six years and, with the changes we are facing in the upcoming months, I am going to have to remain very flexible in my daily schedules. However, after some prayer and reflection I have concluded that there are some goals that I must meet daily and I have realized that for now, my Rule will have to be simply be a list of these daily goals. There are ten in all.

1) Pray with my spouse, in the morning before we leave our room.
2) Attend daily Mass or start the day with the family Rosary.
3) Wash, dry and put away (at a minimum) one load of clothes a day. (Keep in mind my dryer is on its last legs or I would try to do more)
4) Breakfast & breakfast chores
5) School, including Tanny's Speech Therapy exercises
6) Lunch & lunch chores (recheck laundry)
7) Read w/ Emma, Elsa and Tanny
8) 3 pm Chaplet, followed by 3 pm chores.
9) Supper @ 5 pm, followed by supper chores
10) Bedtime routines started by 7:30, include examination of conscience at this time.

This is not a full rule and those familiar with Holly's book, will immediately see some holes in it such as time alone for myself. While this is a bare bones start, all of the five P's discussed in Holly's book are covered in a minimal way here.
First P - Prayer; is covered in 1, 2, 8 and 10.
Second P - Person; is covered by 4, 6, 8 & 10. Eating our meals on time is a basic need I must follow for myself as well as the family. Also by ensuring my children follow a bedtime routine, I leave time open for myself to be spent alone, as well as with my husband.
Third P - Partner; is covered by Hugo and I agreeing to start our day by praying together as well as through # 10 as I mention above.
Fourth P - Parenting; simply attempting to achieve all of these 10 daily goals will make me a better parent.
Fifth P - Provider; in ensuring the daily meal chores are done daily, and on time, helps with the area of provider as in doing so - I will ensure that food is not left out and wasted. As well, # 10 helps to provide for an earlier bedtime for Hugo and I, allowing us to rest and have more energy to give toward the needs of providing for our family.

My goal is to try and accomplish each of these goals daily for a minimum of thirty days and then add to it. I have determined that these is the very minimum that I must achieve daily in order for God to be able to bless my efforts and help me to lessen the mental stress that I am feeling daily. In doing this I am confident I not only will gain energy, but that I will also find that large gaps of time will open up, allowing me to pack more meat on this skeleton of a rule.

Now why have I chosen to share this publicly? Largely to put a little pressure on myself by publicly sharing a commitment I have made to myself.

And so now you know that while I may be without heat - I am not without hope as I face 2008 spanning before me, yet to be filled with challenges; met and conquered. 2007 was a difficult year that seriously drained our energies and sometimes our hope and even our courage. I can only pray that by starting off 2008 with this simple rule for myself, I will find the energy, courage and strength to face come what may. And most importantly, I know I will be doing it hand in hand with God.
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P.S. Whilst working on this post, the heat (after 8 hours of not functioning) kicked back in downstairs. Praise be to God and may the heat STAY on! Although we will still request a service visit to make sure that something is not wrong as it is very bizarre... no heat... heat... Read more!

The Kindness Test

I took this test and scored nine, the lower end of "kinda nice person, but as a follower of Christ I need work!" Ooops! Try the test yourself and see how you score!
Good Luck!

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Christmas Eve Prep

• Gifts Wrapped and locked in St Nick's work shop... check

• Clothes laid out and ready for Mass... Check

• Last minute mad dash to get ready for Mass... Check

• Hot chocolate and cookies before bed - forgotten in their haste to get to sleep so St Nick could get busy.
  

• Gifts now under the tree... check

• Stockings filled by St Nick... Check
  

• Snacks prepared to be left in bedrooms to help keep kidos busy and happy until 9 am, expected arrival of older siblings... check
  

• Coffee machine set up and cider warming in crock pot... check
  

• Ready for hot drinks for fifteen in the morning...

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Happy Birthday Baby Jesus!!!

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Note to self...

...next year do NOT buy cap guns for Saint Nickolas to leave in the stockings. And when I leave instructions for where and when to put out the stockings remember to tell St Nick that Hugo does not want the stockings put out before 7 am in hopes of avoiding the 3 am wakeup call we had this year.

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NO more till Dawn!!!

The Western style shoot out that was played out in the upstairs hallway around 4 am prompted my announcement that no more cap guns were to be heard until dawn. By midmorning at least one of the felons involved appeared to be regretting it. Read more!

More Christmas Pictures to come...

... I promise!

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Are you READY???

Are you READY!? Are we ever really ready though for the birth of Christ? I know I always feel somewhat unprepared, no matter how well stocked my cupboards are, or if all the gifts are wrapped and ready for Baby Jesus and St Nick to put under the tree. And I think this has a lot to do with the hecticness that I allow to creep into my last week of Advent. Every year I swear it will be different. But this year I think I feel a little more prepared than normal because I have worked hard to be able to relax today. Today I plan to do a little baking with the children. Originally, before so many were felled by a virus, I had planned on this baking to be done sooner. But one must roll with the flow, eh?

To help the children get through the day without busting a seam, I am posting a list of to dos over the Baby's creche so that they may make it just a little softer by adding yarn as they do these things. In doing so, they will be more focused on Baby Jesus rather than what might be under the tree tomorrow. (Well, sort of! They are kids after all and even I am looking forward to the tree and all of those expectant glowing eyes!)

(This awesome picture was found HERE.) Read more!

KNOCK on wood!!!

Since the baby had a fever that peaked somewhere over 103 - no one else has fallen ill. KNOCK ON WOOD!! (And a little prayer never hurt either!) We had some head aches, tummy aches but no more fevers or woofing of cookies!!

In fact as we drove to Mass this morning, with 13 of the 14 of us all in the van, Emma's little voice could be heard wavering over all the cheerful babble as she sang in the typical falsetto of most five year olds. She was rendering us her own Christmas carol.

"Christmas is Wonderful!
Christmas is better than eating breakfast!
Christmas is better than dolls!
Christmas is better than putting on socks!
Christmas is better than, ummm, Christmas is better than puppppppy dooooooogs!!!"

And she is right! Christmas is better than all these things - when we remember what Christmas really is!

"... in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger." Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests." Luke 2: 11-14

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Where is MY iron???

I hope to post a few times more over the next couple of days, but I never quite know how my Christmas Eve and Christmas Day will go - no matter how much I plan ahead. However, I will brag just a little. I actually know what everyone is going to wear and I think all of it is clean. I have one more outfit to double check before I can I know for sure everything is clean!

Unfortunately as I was preparing some of these outfits, I was slowly building up into a full blown hissy fit because I could not find my IRON and I was all set to iron several white shirts so that they would be nice and crisp under each of my sons' sweaters... suddenly the ludicrousness of it all jumped in my face. I was about to blow a gasket, causing everyone near me untold stress and, as such, committing a venial sin by inflecting my mal temper on all around me. For what? So that I, and only I, could know that my sons' shirts were freshly ironed under their sweaters. Surely it was more important that I contribute to a peaceful atmosphere so that we could continue to prepare our hearts for coming of Christ, whose special Mass I was preparing these clothes for.

So, I think I would have made Danielle proud. I put away all foolish ideas of ironing and made myself a cup of tea, had a snack and then tackled the last two gifts that I needed to wrap.

So hopefully I will be popping in and out, especially as my camera has returned home so I hope to be able to share pictorially again. AND I have an announcement to make after Christmas. (No, mum2twelve has not have to create a new blog called mum2thirteen!!) So stay tuned and find out just what piece of exciting news I have to share with my readers.


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fevers abound...

of the 102 variety... so posts will be rare for a few days. Prayers gratefully accepted!!! Read more!

Dis bear needs surgery!

Last night I was tidying my room while 2 year old Elsa reigned from my bed. I came across my very old Teddy bear who had lost his nose to a puppy ever so many years ago. Sadly he was losing his head too as the stitching around his neck was loose. Quite some time ago, Gabriela had promised to repair him and now he badly needed even more repair than he had the day she promised this. I picked him up and watched as his head flipped backward and his gaping wound exposed his internal stuffing.

Mournfully I showed him to Elsa and commented on how Gabriela, her God Mother, had not yet made good on her promise. I placed him gently on my pillow and Elsa stared at him for a moment before carefully picking him off. She slipped off my bed with the bear cradled in her arms and quietly disappeared. I wondered what she intended to do with my almost decapitated bear.

I shrugged my shoulders and leaned back into the task at hand. Getting the coal off of my stocking on the dining room wall, and until my room was clean - there it would remain with all of my children's stockings bearing brightly coloured candy canes that marked how many days their rooms had been clean. A few moments later I heard the patter of Elsa's feet on the stairs and when I stepped into the hallway to stuff used paper into garbage the bag there, I greeted her as she entered. She looked at me and with the bear still clasped to her bosom she announced solemnly; "Dis bear needs surgery!"

"Oh!" I replied, hiding a smile. " "Who says?" I asked.

"Me!" She paused a second or two and then added, "and Gabiela!"

She marched into her older sister's bedroom and I watched her expecting the bear to be lovingly placed on her sister's bed, to await his much needed surgery. To my shock she carelessly flung the bear onto the bed and swung around to return to her throne in my room. Surgery had been promised and there was little doubt in her mind that her God Mother would follow through so therefor, I guess, the bear no longer required her assistance and her job was complete.

And she was right, later that evening neck firmly stitched up, nose still missing, my Teddy was gently placed back on his throne - my pillow. Elsa inspected him and was content. Mummy's bear was well again. Read more!

...and the door clicked behind me!

I stepped outside for a moment. We were still enjoying weather in the 20's (Celsius) and I needed something from the van. Click. I heard the front door lock behind me. Before I could turn around I heard the mail slot clatter and a voice, somewhat hollow sounding, called through it.
"If you tell me I can go into the classroom (aka St Nick's Work shop) I'll let you back in." Remembering that the side porch door was not locked I tore off around the corner and clambered over the fencing we have put up to protect Elsa, but before I could reach the door knob the culprit was standing there grinning at me as he twisted the lock in the knob. However one of the panes is missing so I simply reached in and unlocked the door. Much to his dismay - and my pleasure. St Nick's workshop is STILL off limits and I did not have to climb through a window to keep it so either! (I think I might leave that pane like that until after the 25th!) Read more!

Almost got me with this one!

Still trying to trick me into giving permission to enter the classroom aka St Nick's workshop my 12 year old son commented to me while I worked on the computer;
"Hmmm, I have been thinking about the classroom. I have thought of a better way to arrange the desks, want me to show you?"
I started to agree that I would be interested when I caught view of the HUGE grin on his face and caught myself just in the nick of time! Read more!

offer to clean...

"Mummy, could you find me a cloth and some tough and tender?" (This got my attention) "You know, those gifts might be dirty, I could clean them for you!" Read more!

running gag continues

"You know - some of those gifts could be bobby trapped. I better double check them for you to keep you safe mummy!" Read more!

Christmas Cheer Challenge

Click HERE to learn what this Christmas Cheer Challenge is.

We too have been the blessed recipients of a raffle of sorts. A friend from our parish noticed one of the prizes for their Christmas raffle was a basket of games and toys. She immediately thought of our family and said to herself, I need to win this for Hugo and Christi's family. So she prayed to God to allow her to win this prize for our children. And she did!!

So I owe a thank you note to Jesus as well as my wonderful friend who thought to pray for such a thoughtful thing. I think it is so cool to get a gift from GOD.

So if you want to share a little Christmas Cheer too click here. And just maybe you will win a lovely gift too. Read more!

Awesome Alternative...

... to BARBIE

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