{"id":167,"date":"2007-03-02T19:54:30","date_gmt":"2007-03-03T03:54:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/barelycontrolledchaos.wordpress.com\/2007\/03\/02\/the-end-of-laundry-as-i-know-it\/"},"modified":"2007-03-02T19:54:30","modified_gmt":"2007-03-03T03:54:30","slug":"the-end-of-laundry-as-i-know-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/barelycontrolledchaos.com\/wordpress\/?p=167","title":{"rendered":"The End of Laundry As I Know It&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Well, it isn&#8217;t the end&#8230;there never seems to be an end to laundry.<\/p>\n<p>I remember vividly when I was pregnant with A. and getting close to my due date and I pulled out a tub (actually there were more like 3 or 4) of Emma&#8217;s baby clothes that I had kept in hopes of being able to use them again some day. I opened the lid  and the smell of Dreft wafting up was enough to make me have a bit of a hormonal incident. Just that Dreft smell was enough to set me off. I sat and cried huge tears into the tiny little onesies, as I held them and just breathed the sweet smell of Emma&#8217;s babyness.<\/p>\n<p>At that time I had been washing Em&#8217;s clothes with ours mostly and using my old standby, Tide. But after A. came along I started washing the girls clothes together, mostly because it was just easier, but also because if one girl&#8217;s clothes smelled so good with the Dreft, then two girls&#8230;well, that would be baby-smell heaven, right?<\/p>\n<p>As a little sidenote, I think laundry is one of my least favorite household chores. (My absolute least favorite is unloading the dishwasher as the girls I lived with in London will attest! And it unfortunately is the one thing I do nearly every single day.)  But I LOVE folding the girls&#8217; laundry! All sweet smelling and warm from the dryer. Plus an added bonus &#8211; it is all tiny stuff so you end up with piles of clean laundry, and it looks like you did loads and loads &#8211; but it doesn&#8217;t seem to take nearly as long to fold.<\/p>\n<p>But back to the real story here&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>A. is really, I mean <em><strong>really<\/strong><\/em>, hard on her clothes. The Dreft just isn&#8217;t cutting it anymore. I soak, I bleach, I Zout (which is normally a miracle product) and none of it is really working here. I fear poor little Gabella Ella is not going to get many hand-me-downs from here on out&#8230;there just won&#8217;t be much left to them when A. is done with them.<\/p>\n<p>And all of this isn&#8217;t even the real story&#8230;(I do know it isn&#8217;t very interesting reading about my minor obsession with Dreft or how incredibly messy my child is.)<\/p>\n<p>The real point here is, I realized that I have about two more loads worth of Dreft left and then it is time to switch over&#8230;and I feel incredibly sad.<\/p>\n<p>I feel a weird sort of sadness that I won&#8217;t be using baby detergent anymore. Isn&#8217;t that the strangest thing you&#8217;ve ever heard? (It may be the strangest thing I&#8217;ve ever written.)  I guess it is just affecting me like this because I know they are growing up. Each week &#8211; each DAY,  I see them getting a little bit bigger, acting a little bit older, and I guess this crazy little &#8220;switching of the detergents&#8221; is like a milestone, of some sorts.<\/p>\n<p>I think I finally understand why some moms are so happy to do their kids&#8217; laundry when they bring home piles of it from college, or after being away. It is one of those little things that let us pretend our <em>big kids<\/em> are still our <em>babies<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Well, it isn&#8217;t the end&#8230;there never seems to be an end to laundry. I remember vividly when I was pregnant with A. and getting close to my due date and I pulled out a tub (actually there were more like &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/barelycontrolledchaos.com\/wordpress\/?p=167\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,55,120],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-addison","category-emma","category-parenting"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/psMOS-2H","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/barelycontrolledchaos.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/barelycontrolledchaos.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/barelycontrolledchaos.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/barelycontrolledchaos.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/barelycontrolledchaos.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/barelycontrolledchaos.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/barelycontrolledchaos.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/barelycontrolledchaos.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/barelycontrolledchaos.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}