Operation "liberate Mama" has commenced

That title should really read something like "operation make-children-independent has commenced", but it's kind of one and the same. 

One of my goals for this summer (there are always too many!) is to teach the kids to do their own laundry. It's a little more complicated than it ought to be with our current laundry set up. We have a frontloading washer on a pedestal drawer. The whole thing sits on a concrete pad about 6" above the level of the basement floor.

What that really means is that I have to stand on tiptoe to see when I add soap to the dispenser. None of the kids can even get close. So I've been stocking up on laundry soap pods that get tossed directly into the washer drum.

I started with the boys and this is the third week they have done their laundry themselves. I go down with them in case they have questions (or forget to add detergent!) but they do it all by themselves. Since they don't really have a full load each week they are stripping their sheets and washing those, too. I'm all about killing two birds with one stone!

They think they're super independent (and all the girls are begging to do their own laundry, too!) but since they're only doing one load a week it's not burning them out.

Even better...it's two less loads for me!!