Skip to main content

Laundry with a Baby

Reading Laura Ingalls when I was a child, I was struck by the list of weekly tasks—one task for each day of the week:

"Wash on Monday, 
Iron on Tuesday, 
Mend on Wednesday,
 
Churn on Thursday,
 
Clean on Friday,
 
Bake on Saturday,
 
Rest on Sunday."

These all day chores happened in the days before really awesome inventions like washing machines. They also happen in the all day sense when you have a baby.

Today was washing day. Yes. I broke from the old-fashioned model and made my washday Wednesday. I’m on maternity leave so washing and folding the clothes seemed like a manageable project—it should have been manageable in a couple of hours. And in certain possible worlds manageable might be accurate.

Naturally since it is now the 21st first century, I added a couple of things to Wednesday washday after all washing shouldn't take all day. 

This was my Wednesday list:

1.    Keep Felicity alive and ticking via multiple feedings and lots of interaction.
2.    Lose extra baby weight by committing to running a mile a day for the next month. This is only day three! And what am I going to do when my husband is in Atlanta?
3.    Make lunch and make dinner, because I am a homemaker now. And heck, I should be able to make lunch and dinner. I only have one baby.
4.    Write on the novel, because novels don’t write themselves.
5.    Do the LAUNDRY!

It’s the laundry where the real hiccup came. (Well and the novel… I’m still waiting for it to began self-creating). The laundry went in easy enough. And figuring out how to transport baby and laundry was solved. Baby inside the laundry basket equals new baby carrier and clean clothing holder. The real problem came with the folding and putting away, because babies like to have attention… lots of attention. They also like to eat…a lot. They also make cute cooing sounds that are impossible to ignore. And it seems irresponsible not to enter into some conversation with the baby. After all she’s learning language from me! So a couple pieces of clothing would be folded in between diaper changes, feedings, and cooking… because if I don’t eat how can Felicity eat?

It’s almost midnight now a few folded clothes still sit on the sofa a few unfolded clothes are still in the basket. Gentle music plays and Felicity and Nathan both sleep. I could put the clothes away now, but tomorrow will do. After all, novels don’t write themselves and I managed to cook dinner, and Felicity’s quiet breath fills the background. I’ll learn eventually how to make wash not a two day project, but the chore of a few hours. Until then, I’m enjoying watching my little girl grow.






Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Two Little Girls and a Bench

  It was one of those moments before dinner in which I could have easily moved into the busy rush of dinner, clean-up, and bed-time, when I was stopped in my tracks. Isabelle, with her round face, and bright eyes, and fifteen month strength, clamored onto a bench and made it apparent to me that she wanted to jump from its one foot height with the help of my hand. I obliged and a game began, a game that was immediately joined by Emmaline, her three-year old sister, who does everything with full abandon. Soon, I found myself holding two little hands as two little girls jumped off a bench in unison. What joy this moment held for them. Again. Repeat. They would have jumped as long as I allowed. Each little face starlit with the joy of leaving the earth for one brief moment in the company of one’s sister and one’s mommy.  Tonight I read in Chesterton’s Orthodoxy that, “Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want t...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Leaf

  A couple of weeks ago, I read “The Leaf by Niggle” aloud to five-year old Felicity. Since I was teaching on the story a few days later, I counted my inspiration to read-aloud as a double win towards homeschooling and teaching prep. Didn’t know that my five-year-old, would once again teach me.     Tolkien’s short story follows the life of a Niggle, a painter, who envisions a glorious tree, but only manages to paint leaves, a paltry homage to his vision. About half-way through the story Niggle is sent on a journey, presumably death. After some time in a dismal hospital and workhouse, a train takes him to a familiar green space. As he wanders, wonderingly, he discovers it. The tree. His tree.   Felicity turned to me as I read and she said with the joy of discovery in her voice,    “Mommy! Did God make his tree real?”   “Yes, Felicity. Yes, that is it. That is exactly it.”    Tolkien and Lewis both thought that fairy-tales and myths, those bear...
Post a Comment
Read more

On Soup, Vices, Babies, and the End of the Day

I’m sitting eating soup and hearing phantom cries. At least, every time I jump up the baby monitor confirms that the crying is only in my head.  Today, with the rapt attention of my four-year old, I wrote a to-do list on our large kitchen chalkboard. I’m not certain if that was a good idea as the last to-do—a very large pile of laundry still looms a pants and onesies mountain or a shirts and socks field, pick your favorite metaphor of choice. But whatever your choice, it’s there.  Strewn along my bedroom floor. Waiting. (Yes, the bed would be a better place, but the baby needed nursing.)  The problem with a to-do list is that my biggest to-do, is to be with my three little ones. And really, that is not even a to-do, that is my life, my calling.  The other problem with a to-do list is that tasks sometimes seem to stand in the way of just being, a woman, a mother, striving by the grace of God to grow in virtue, to model said virtue so that the little soul...
Post a Comment
Read more