Bitty Things I Can’t Believe I Didn’t Do Sooner {and a giveaway}

You know that cheesy old saying that a “woman’s work in never done?”

Yeah, totally true.

I mean, I can do laundry until I’m blue in the face and the bottom of the basket will have something in it again within seconds.

I can do the dishes, and ten minutes later there’s more.

And don’t even get me started on the floors.

My kids (4 & 2) aren’t perfect, nor are they tidy…but there are a couple of things they are really, really, really consistently good at:

One thing they are really good at is putting their dirty clothes in hampers.

Now, if you can recall, I’m a stickler for white towels.

ONLY white towels.

And while I’m a proponent of hanging towels for re-use (I mean really, they don’t need washed every time!), I get weird if a wet towel has been tossed into a hamper or even left in a ball on the floor for more than a few minutes.

I don’t care if it’s only been in there ten minutes…it’s done.  Dirty.  Needs washed.  No recovery.

It just grosses me out.  I can almost hear the mold growing.

I know that’s neurotic and ridiculous but I’m weird.

As you can see, my kids being really good (or really bad) at getting their dirty clothes put away makes for A LOT A LOT of laundry.

Lately, I was realizing that I was doing a whole lot of extra laundry…and a TON of it was towels.

Nothing I seemed to do was helping.

I’d get sidetracked and somehow towels were either tossed into hampers or left in damp balls in a corner.

So…I did the unthinkable.

The shocking.

The absolutely insane.

I bought colored towels.

Horrors.

I get hives just looking at them.

But they’re not for me.

Just the kids.

One for each kid.  Each with their own assigned color.

Lu gets pink.

Jill gets purple.

Henry is the green (but he wasn’t home for mom’s photo shoot).

I followed this tutorial and made them hoodie towels (Don’t be impressed.  It’s ridiculously easy.  If you can sew two straight lines, you can do this.  Took like 10 minutes per towel.  If that.)

Now, even if they get left on the floor, I don’t care if they get re-hung since it’s not me that’ll be using them.

Mom of the Year.

(And yes, in case you were wondering, I’m already convinced they are dingy…we’ve had them three weeks.  Logical.)

Another thing they are really good at is clearing their space after meals and putting any dishes they use in the sink.

Even little Lu, at just 26 months old, automatically carries her little plastic plate and cup to the sink after meals without a reminder dropping half the uneaten food on the floor like a modern day Gretel.

So, I can’t complain too much about my problem…after all, they’re just doing as they were told, right?

But here’s the issue: my kids are so good at putting used dishes in the sink that they would take one bitty sip of water from a cup and then just toss it in the sink.

ALL. DAY. LONG.

By mid afternoon, the top rack of my dishwasher looked more like I was running a preschool than a mom to three.

It was ridiculous.

No matter how many times I tried to say “This is your cup for the day…just leave it out and reuse it!”…they would take one sip and into the sink it would go.

Sigh.

I mean, I can only get so mad right?

But it was still driving me batty.

Finally, I decided to end the plastic cup madness and bought each of the kids their own water bottle.  (I got these at Target for $3.99 each).

Every morning I fill them with fresh water and they live in the bottom fridge door shelf where they can be reached easily by grubby little hands.

Hen and Lu can help themselves (and get Jill’s for her) as they please throughout the day and for some reason because it’s a water bottle, they put them back in the fridge rather than tossing them into the sink.

I cannot tell you how this ridiculously simple water bottle idea has cut the sheer amount of dishes I have!

(And a side benefit is that I can keep an eye on how much water the kids are or aren’t drinking.)

It’s impossibly simple.

I won’t win any awards for ingenuity…but I share this with you because I was shocked at how a few goofy little changes makes such a difference in workload for me!

My point is: if you can think of a way to streamline, DO IT!  You’ll be amazed!

Oh, and while you’re here…

Did you notice those cool little rubber dealies with the kids’ names imprinted on them?

Cool, right?

I had gotten some for Henry when he was a baby for daycare and nursery at church.

They were so handy (you can leave them on in the dishwasher!) I bought the girls each a set too.

I like them so much  I asked InchBug if they would like to share a set of their Orbit Labels with one lucky Life Rearranged reader!

They come in a ton of fun colors…

And you can customize them to include allergy information:

Wanna win a set for your kid?

Here’s whatcha can do:

1) Leave a comment on this post telling me what neverending task you can’t seem to wrangle around the house.  (1 entry)

2) Like LifeRearranged on Facebook and leave me a comment telling me you did. (1 entry)

3) Like InchBug on Facebook and leave a comment telling me you did.  (1 entry)

I’ll pull a winner Wednesday, September 21st.

{This is not a sponsored post.  I emailed InchBug and was all ‘hey, i like your stuff, you should give one to my friends.’ and they were all ‘cool, no problem’.  and i was all ‘awesome’.}

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jeannett

I'm a mom to four. A wife to one. I believe in story. I love telling you about mine and would love to hear yours. There's really no sense in wasting our suffering and not sharing in each other's joy. We're all in this together...even if it doesn't always feel like it.

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Latest posts by jeannett (see all)

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