I do, ohhh, let’s say 80% of the laundry in our house. S. will do a load or two on the weekend, and occasionally after a trip or long weekend she’ll get all fired up and spend 12 hours getting every single thing washed and folded and put away. But normally it’s me doing the day-to-day laundry, from start-to-finish.

Where I am not involved, though, is in the seasonal changes in the girls’ clothes. S. has a system of plastic totes where clothes are put away after each season, and recalled when the next sister has grown into them. They are clearly labeled and carefully organized inside. I’m not allowed anywhere near these, because I would just mess them up.1

With this crazy spring, we still have closets full of winter clothes and it’s become a chore to get the warm weather stuff squeezed into drawers and onto hangers. But it seems we’re finally in warm weather for good, so today I started pulling some of those cold-weather clothes out and getting them stacked up so S. can do her thing with them this weekend.

While doing so, I realized that when we get L.’s clothes down and prepare to store them, we’re doing it for the last time. So goodbye Hello Kitty Valentine’s shirt that C. and L. wore. Goodbye dress that all three girls wore to their preschool Christmas program. So long pig jammies that kept each sister warm through multiple winters. There were some clothes that were only L.’s, but quite a few had been worn by at least two sisters.

I’m not saying I had some kind of Lifetime movie moment and got all emotional while putting clothes away, contemplating the near-end of having preschoolers in the house. But you know I am a reflective cat and it was a little sad to say goodbye to all the winter 4’s clothes for the last time.


  1. That’s my self-criticism, but I’m sure S. would absolutely agree with me.