LAUNDRY!!!!!

Laundry……is there any other word in the English language that can instill more dread in the heart of a mother than laundry?  (OK…I will admit there are a few, like stomach virus, surgery, accident, BUT as far as housework, I think that laundry is it!)  Take our home.  There are 5 of us; Daddy, Mommy, Daughter, Son 1 and Son 2.  We are not a typical 1.5 child American family; there are 5 of us after all not 3.5!   So Laundry is a BAD WORD.

I will readily admit that I do not mind washing clothes, I have a washing machine that does that!  I even don’t mind drying them, after all we have a drier and a clothes line (which I do use every time I wash thank you very much!)  I don’t mind folding the clothes….What I hate is putting them away!  Is there any more tedious or mundane chore than putting clothes away?  After all we are going to drag them out and wear them again!  What’s the point?   Yet my family revolts at the idea of living out of clothes baskets so….

Laundry is the thorn in my daily side.  Take last night for example; we were outside playing together as a family, something we purpose to do often.  I have boys.  One son wants to be a bull rider, the other wants to ride tractors.  They are as different as night and day.  Yet, they both have a mutual attraction to one thing: DIRT!  Boy were they black when they came in.  Oh no, they can’t play in nice white playground sand, but they can go and roll, (yes I said ROLL) in the black dirt by the barn!  There was dirt in every crevice on their body and in their clothes!  We had to set the hose nozzle to stun just to get them brushed off to come into the house…..which brings me to laundry!

Have you ever had to shake out your children’s clothes, prewash, soak, and then wash them just to do it all over again a day or two later?  I do, every time I wash, which is at least three times a week if not more depending on of we are washing bed linens….that’s another story! 

  Yet it struck me today as I was soaking the clothes for the second time this morning, I have the unique privilege of washing my children’s clothes!  How many woman long for the chance to wash one little pair of dirty jeans, and I get to wash THREE!?  How many women would endure anything to have the joy that comes from laughing and watching their child get THAT dirty?  I get to watch them on a daily basis!  One day my children will be gone, one day my house will be clean, one day my laundry will be done!  I don’t want that day to come anytime soon!  Thank you Jesus for my children and laundry!

LAUNDRY….what a beautiful word!