There are only two types of people in this world–the people who can keep track of every sock while doing the laundry, and the people who don’t have a prayer.
I desperately wish I was the type of person who could keep track. But socks have a free pass to come and go as they please in our house on Sunday, when I do the laundry. They have this revolving door thing going on. Dress socks and workout socks tend to stray further, protesting their monogamous destinies, while evading their matched significant other.
These are the things that occupy my mind.
If I have such a rocky relationship with adult socks, how am I supposed to look at my son’s toddler socks on laundry day? He’s 2 now, and so much bigger than he was as an infant. Yet I feel like his socks still reign in at about a quarter of the size of their adult counterparts. How in the @$!@#$@#! am I supposed to be able to keep track of something so &^%*&^% small???
A lot of people look at a baby or toddler sock and see a reminder of how cute and adorable the child is. While my child is cute and adorable, this is not at all what I see looking at a toddler sock. I see something made to lose.
They are made to get stuck inside other articles of toddler bedding and clothing, or get stuck on the side of the dryer as you empty the load. They are made to drop while the load is in transport, or lose between couch cushions. The idea that two socks of the same likeness and pattern could end up findable as laundry is being folded would constitute a Sunday miracle.
This is the type of thing that makes me irritable and frustrated, and might turn my hair gray tomorrow. Toddler socks are so small that on the off chance you find a match, it’s a strain on your fine motor skills to actually fold them. Piecing them together requires the same precision as threading a needle.
So how do I respond? I don’t. I do about 90 percent of our laundry, my wife does about 99 percent of Jamie’s folding. I might still be working on last week’s folding if that weren’t the case.
When I fold adult laundry (which actually can feel somewhat peaceful and relaxing), progress is visible. Hang up a shirt, and see the pile dwindle in size. When I unearth toddler socks the pile is still there, seemingly the same size, and laughing hysterically at me. No matter how many toddler socks, pants or shirts I fold, the pile still feels about the same size.
I’m developing the patience to deal with things like temper tantrums, partly out of necessity and partly out of personal growth. But if I need to deal with that pile of clean toddler laundry sitting in the basket on laundry day, it could just be what sends me over the edge.
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