Our Official Laundry Guy

I have always joked around saying "I believe in child labor." Well of course, I don't believe in real child labor...but I sure do believe in kids having chores, jobs and responsibilities in the home. Ours do and have for some time. I think a family should work together in maintaining and keeping the home and home life happy and running smoothly. Now that doesn't mean mine always is...but it's much more likely to run smoothly if everyone is working together, because then I'm not so stressed with it falling all on my shoulders. Besides, sharing responsibilities in the household helps build a sense of worth and accomplishment, which in turn builds character.

Of course when the kids were little, these chores were small things, but as they grow...so do their responsibilities. Colt is especially good at his (and has been for some time)....especially considering he's a guy (no offense intended here if you're a guy...just that sometimes boys don't think they should HAVE these jobs)! I've always told him that his future wife would love me for teaching him these things! When he was only nine, he was responsible for vacuuming the entire house. (I was expecting Joy at that time and we also had carpet everywhere). Later on he cleaned all three bathrooms...he had one on different days of the week (he didn't have the vacuuming job at that time just in case you think I'm a slave driver!) lol! Now sometimes I could have probably done a better job (or at least more to my standards), but I let him do it. I complimented him and showed him ways to make it better if necessary (in a nice way) and I learned to live with the towels not folded like I would have folded them or being put up not as neatly stacked.



Here's where the title of this post comes in. See the picture above? Well when he turned fourteen (I believe), we taught him how to take care of the laundry. He's had a few mishaps of pens in the dryer or things fading, but then so have I! He's actually a pro at doing laundry now! At age nineteen, he is STILL our official laundry guy (his two main responsibilities are the laundry and taking care of the trash these days). I figure as a college student working and studying....that's plenty! He's learned how to keep the laundry rolling. He does the majority of it (only leaving Joy's to me because she has so many things that have to be washed separately that I let him off the hook with hers). You can see him at any given time....especially late at night catching up on laundry while he's talking on the phone....or texting....or listening to music. He's really learned to multi-task....he's quite the King-of-Multi-Tasking these days! Now you can see why he was so excited over our new dryer that we got a couple of months back? As a matter of fact when we go in Lowe's or Home Depot (and he's with us)....we'll walk by those beautiful red side by side washer and dryers....and he'll drool over them....saying...one day I'm going to have some of those.....that's what you can get me as a wedding present! lol!

And he cooks too......and loves to cook! I think he was whipping us up some kind of sandwiches this day.



But now Joy is the age that her responsibilities are growing. She is now nine. She has lucked out in a way though. We no longer have carpet everywhere like we did when Colt was nine....we only have it in the bedrooms (and unfortunately still on our stairs). Jason and I were just talking the other night about the fact that her responsibilities need to be increased real soon. She's like me though....she'll definitely have to use a list to go by or she'll get too distracted....bless her heart! But ONE DAY.....Joy will be our official laundry girl.......