How to Successfully Do Laundry with a Toddler

I’m nearly a mom of two. By nearly I mean I have one coming at the end of December and one born already two years of age. The first born, or toddler, I usually refer to by “Monster”. We’ll see what happens in December when my little girl makes her appearance. I’m sure her behavior will produce some relevant nickname by which I feel I have no choice but to call her. 

Anyway, in my two years as a mother, most of that time being a single mom, I’ve found that it’s ridiculously and unnecessarily difficult to complete every day or week tasks with the same thoughtless ease I once took for granted. I don’t consider myself an expert, but I think I’ve pretty much figured out how to do most things from my own perspective (not really, God help me). So without further ado, let’s dive in, shall we? How to successfully do laundry with a toddler.

Step one: Walk into your bedroom or bathroom or both (wherever you store your dirty laundry, the corner in the living room, under the dining room table even though you don’t know how it got there, or hell maybe even sometimes thrown haphazardly somewhere on your bookshelf between your college textbooks) and take a moment to feel like absolute shit about how crappy everything looks with the dirty clothes thrown everywhere and make yourself feel even worse by remembering the fact that your boyfriend or husband didn’t have clean underwear this morning before he went to work.

Step two: Moved only by your guilt that you haven’t done laundry in three weeks or more (who even knows at this point), try to walk through the house with a toddler clinging to one leg to gather all of the clothes that have been thrown all over the house mostly by your little monster. Check behind the toilet in the bathroom for tiny monster socks. Check the guest bedroom for underwear. Check under the couch for onesies. Check behind the entertainment center (yea I said it) for undershirts and the like.

Step three: Get tired of the monster holding on to your leg and pry him off with strength granted to you by the Gods. (Why do monsters develop superstrength when you’re trying to get them to do something they don’t want to do?)

Step four: Pretend you don’t hear the tantrum the monster is throwing because you’re the worst mom ever and you’re ruining his life and it’s just SO hard being a two year old because your leg is tired and you can’t drag him through the house anymore.

Step five: After you’ve gathered all of the dirty clothes together, attempt to separate them by color.

Step six: Take the pair of cookie monster pajama pants your little monster has become fascinated with away from him so they can go in the wash with the light colors that you’ve decided to wash first.

Step seven: Ignore the way the monster screams “Tootie Moester” over and over again like that is gonna make you take the pants out or something.

Step eight: When the load finishes in the wash, open the dryer door before you reach in and grab a handful of wet clean clothes to throw them in the dryer. Watch as they hit the floor instead of the inside of the dryer because the monster that is standing right next to you has closed the dryer door. 

Step nine: Sigh and roll your eyes before you open the door again, move the monster out of the way, pick the clothes up off of the floor, and successfully toss them in the dryer.

Step ten: Open the dryer door over and over again every time you need to throw in the next handful of wet clothes, because the monster is constantly shutting it and saying “Helpful” because he thinks he is helping you, until you have emptied the washer.

Step eleven: Go to where you have separated the clothes and realize your monster has re-separated them for you.

Step twelve: Separate clothes again before throwing in the next load and don’t forget the three pairs of pants, five socks, and one toddler shirt that your monster threw into your empty dirty clothes hamper when you weren’t looking. (Don’t worry. You won’t remember that last part. You’ll find those clothes in that hamper when you think you’re finished.)

Step thirteen: Take the dry load out and set it in the living room to fold.

Step fourteen: Go back to put the wet load in the dryer and find that you’ve washed a toy baby TV remote that your monster mixed into the clothes when you weren’t looking. 

Step fifteen: Hope to God the remote still works because it happens to be one of the monster’s favorite toys, but don’t test it in case it makes a sad garbled noise and brings the monster’s attention to it.

Step sixteen: After you’ve rotated the loads, sit down in the living room and begin folding clothes.

Step seventeen: Refold all of the clothes your monster is grabbing and messing up and then snap at him to stop or he is going to go in the room to lay down for time-out.

Step eighteen: Repeat steps six through seventeen and pray you don’t lose your mind

Step nineteen: Just freaking give up and leave the last two loads in a hamper or basket without folding them. They’re clean for chrissakes! What more can anyone ask of you?

Finally, Step twenty: Look down at your swelling belly and call yourself stupid for ever thinking that you wanted to do this all over again with a new little monster. 

And that, my beautiful mothers, is how you successfully wash your clothes with a toddler. Have any more tips to offer or any other thoughts? Drop them in the comments and thanks for stopping by. ;-)