My kids wear clothes with stains. That does not mean my kids' clothes are dirty. That does not mean my kids are not being taken care of. That does not mean my kids are sickly and unhappy. I have three girls. We are currently on our third round of hand me downs. Each item of kid clothing has been worn hundreds of times before. Stains are bound to happen with all that wear and tear. Lots of stains including shirt collars, pant knees, shirt sleeves, pant legs, and everything in-between. I used to care about getting out the stains but not anymore.
Most of my life is taken up by laundry. Everyday I do at least one load of laundry which does not include folding and putting away the clothes. My husband usually does his own laundry which takes at least one person off my plate. However, I am still only one human doing the laundry for four humans. The five year old is learning to put her own clothes away but that sometimes takes up more of my time than if I was to put her own clothes away. The worst part is the three tiny humans change clothes a number of times during the day. My girls either wear one favorite outfit for three days in a row or wear six outfits in 24 hours. With all those outfits there are a lot of stains that happen. Especially with their favorite outfits they love to wear.
My girls get every type of stains. If there is a stain type I am sure my kids have gotten it. They are very talented in that respect. Eating ketchup turns into a bloody red stain. Doing cartwheels results in green grass stains. Ham sandwiches always cause a yellow mustard stain. No matter how many times I yell "Use a napkin!" my kids choose to use everything except a napkin. Every part of their shirts and pants are constantly covered after each meal. Most of the time this digestive mess comes out in a normal laundry wash but sometimes their clothes emerge from the dryer with a stain. This occurrence happens way too often for me to sweat about it.
I used to care about my girls wearing clothes with stains. I would soak clothes for hours in borax. I would spray every small dirt spot. I would scrub deep with a toothbrush until my fingers were prune ridden. Then I decided to give up and give into a stain wearing life. Every time I would work for hours to lift a stain my girls would jump in a muddy puddle or climb a tree. For a while I only let my girls wear the clothes with stains when we were playing outside or doing an extra messy activity. I even had a special drawer for play clothes. As more girls were added to our brood the "play clothes drawer" became more full than the nice clothes drawers. Eventually I was overrun with stains. I had two options: throw out all the clothes that had stains and spend a massive amount of money buying more or just get used to my girls wearing stains. I chose to live in a stained world. It is much more economical and cost affective.
Living with three feral ladies means stains have become a part of our lives. There is no amount of soaking, tide sticks, bleach, scrubbing, stain spray, and laundry to lift every amazing stain my girls masterfully acquire. Additionally I have chosen to spend my time more wisely. Instead of spending hours soaking stains I want to spend hours soaking in toddler kisses. Instead of spending energy scrubbing stubborn stains I want to spend energy doing yoga with my five year old. Instead of spending money replacing stained clothes I want to spend money on date nights with my eight year old. Therefore my kids will continue to have stains on their clothes and I will continue to choose to live with it. Normal laundry takes the majority of my time so stupid stains are no longer my concern. I have better things to do.
No comments:
Post a Comment