Whoever Said "Clothes Make The Man." Did Not Know My Mother...

I have been attempting to do a dreaded chore for about 2 weeks now. I have been sorting through summer clothes and putting them in the Goodwill pile, the garage sale pile and the save-for-hand-me-downs pile. I have also been getting out the winter hand-me-down clothes and sorting them again... and most of them end up in the Goodwill pile as well.


This takes me so long because I have so many stinking kids who live in this house! Seriously, ever since #4 came along and homeschooling started back up I have only been able to accomplish two chores a day. Dishes (breakfast, lunch and dinner) and laundry. The rest of the house is in complete chaos. Now, you may be saying to yourself "But you have time to Blog you lazy woman!" This is true-I do have time to blog, I also have time to drink a beer or two and sing Broadway musical hits, but I don't criticize your daily schedules do I?


My mother never did the clothes sorting thing when I was a kid. She was not very good at laundry either. This may explain the fact that I wore shorts and a Holly Hobby halter top to school one day... in January. One thing my mom was very good at was child labor. She put us to work I tell you, and not the way I put my kids to work by asking them to vacuum or wipe down the bathroom sink with a Lysol wipe, no, my mother believed in severe child labor.

I would wake to a note on the table. Ahhh, the dreaded note! It was a to-do list. The typical list had things like "scrub the toilets," "rake the carpet" (we had shag), "brown the pork chops" "peel the potatoes" "paint the garage" "change the oil in the station wagon."

Every once in a while a representative from the Department of Labor would call our home and my mother would instantly pretend like she was from the Old Country and could not speak English and hang up. She is wanted in 4 states.

The problem with this "clothes sorting" chore that I have is that it requires the help of my children. I need them to try on winter clothes in order to see if they fit or not. Asking my son to try on clothes is like asking him to paint himself pink and to walk through the neighborhood. It takes sooo long because he has to go to the bathroom and lock the door to try things on. While in the bathroom he decided to go to the bathroom, check out his nose hairs, pick lint from between his toes and see how many good arm pit farts he can belt out. He has focus issues.

Asking my oldest daughter to try on clothes is like asking a supermodel to try on clothes. She has to pick out a complete outfit before she will put it on-one that matches and goes with her hair. She has to twirl 10 times in the mirror and try on a pair of shoes with each outfit to see if it all "comes together." she has vanity issues.

Asking the 4 year old to try on clothes is like asking a monkey to try on clothes. It takes 20 minutes just to coral her and then another 20 to convince her to just put on the sweatpants so Mommy can see if they fit,and no, she does not have to wear them today, and yes, they are pretty and any princess in the world would kill for a pair of sweatpants like these! She has princess issues.


I am starting to think that my mother had the right idea. Just leave all of the clothes from winter, summer, spring and fall in the drawers. It worked for me when I was a kid. So what if I had to wear my bathing suit top for a bra on more than one occasion... I turned out OK.