Life after children becomes more complicated in many ways, but the domestic workload? Well, that seems to grow exponentially with every child. I fondly remember my pre-kid life of running my dishwasher every few days, feeling like my bathroom was still fairly clean days after I'd scrubbed it down, and having only a load or two of laundry every week. It's safe to say, things look a hell of a lot different now. Forget Spring, every season is cleaning time when you have a household of kids (though Spring really is the time to tackle their clutter).
Now that I'm a mom to two kids, ages 7 and 4, my dishwasher inevitably fills up every single day, the bathroom I cleaned the day before already needs some serious attention (when will my son learn to aim?!), and the laundry? Well, it never ends. Trying to reach the bottom of that hamper for longer than 30 minutes is every parent's eternal struggle, but it can be done — and without a crazy amount of effort at that. The solution: force yourself to do one load of laundry every single day, from start (collecting all the dirty clothes in your house) to finish (putting them back in drawers and on hangers).
This might sound simplistic, but I promise it will cut down your laundry anxiety immensely. Not only is one load pretty easy to accomplish — you're talking maybe 20 minutes of real hands-on work — but it also means you'll never accumulate a pile so big that it's overwhelming to even begin tackling it, which only forces you to avoid it longer. Do one load of clothing every day, then on weekends or on a weekday when you're not crazy busy, add another load or two of sheets and towels. But on most days, just complete the following six steps for the next month and see if your laundry load doesn't feel a lot lighter (I promise it will).