the girls' school always calls the wednesday in the week before thanksgiving "dress up day," and they serve turkey and other thanksgiving-type foods in the cafeteria. the first year we lived here, j. was still straddling her girly-girl phase, and had approx. 167 dressy-dresses to choose from, and e. had enough. last year, they wore their flower girl dresses from my brother's wedding (which really weren't THAT dressy). this year, j. is 100% out of her girly-girl stage, and both girls prefer to wear warm-up pants, yoga pants, and ocassionally jeans with simple long sleeve t-shirts. they don't really have any dress up clothes anymore.

but j. went searching last night for the "right" outfit. after we rejected a few way-too-summery choices, she ended up wearing some flowy capri pants with a really nice fall sweater. e. wore some black velvety yoga pants, and wanted to wear her hippy-poet shirt with them. however, j. wore that shirt to the ballet on friday, and i hadn't done their laundry over the weekend (HELLO!! Exams!!).

i half-jokingly told e. to go get her laundry bin, take it downstairs, and start 2 loads in the washers. she didn't bat an eye - she just did it. the hamper was at first too full, but she took some of the laundry out, making sure that her shirt was not removed, and went downstairs.

she came back to report that it took a little longer b/c she forgot to sort the clothes first, and was just about to put detergent in when she remembered. so she had to empty and re-fill the washers. i told her it was important to sort the clothes right now, b/c they have a few new tops, and i'd hate for them to be ruined b/c of their colors not being set.

ten really is too young to be doing her own laundry, right? beloved and i both distinctly remember being closer to 12 when we were assigned the task of doing our own clothes. but she didn't mind. she liked it, and felt that it would be a very fair trade off for some of the other chores she is routinely assigned and detests. she is willing to trade - she will do their laundry (not mine or beloved's, of course, and she wouldn't have to do her sister's, if they didn't share a hamper and sometimes clothes) if i no longer make her bring down the recycling.

bringing down the recycling is most definitely the easiest job in the house. we keep the paper in a bag, and bottles in a box, and you walk down ONE flight of stairs (or take an elevator) to the room where it's all kept, dump the stuff in the bins, and you're DONE.

she's willing to trade that for laundry? the child is insane.

but i am seriously considering making this change.

oh, and they both looked very pretty this morning.

Labels: housework, kids, laundry, life, parenting

posted by Zuska @ 1:18 PM

1 Comments:

At Wednesday, November 15, 2006 4:04:00 PM, She says said…

Wow, that's great! What a good way for her to learn to be responsible to and for herself -- and learn to plan ahead.

I remember doing my entire family's laundry in 6th grade (a little older than your daughter, true)... lugging all of my brothers' jeans and stuff. No fun. But that was my chore.

This sounds like a win-win situation for you and your daughter. Maybe you might give her the "out" of trading back if she's overwhelmed in a few weeks.