I am folding laundry. Again. I do a lot of laundry. I mean I am in a perpetual state of laundry. On my headstone, it will say, “SHE KNEW WHICH DRY-CLEAN-ONLY ITEMS COULD BE MACHINE-WASHED ON A DELICATE CYCLE.” People will leave dryer sheets for me in a special urn, and there will be another special urn where people can do their hand-washing beside my grave.
I don’t remember my mother doing this much laundry. My existence is 40% laundry, 50% general chaos, 10% poo-and-vomit duty.
After I fold this latest batch of laundry, I will put the folded laundry into piles, get distracted by a poo- or vomit-related event, and then forget about the piles until the dogs and girls have overturned the stacks of clothing and made cozy Bounce-scented nests for themselves and their Barbies and their dog toys.
At our house it is impossible to tell what is clean and what is not. Generally speaking, we are a sullied lot.
And yet, I press on. Washing. Folding. I wash well but fold poorly. I never learned proper folding techniques. I didn’t work at the Gap during my high school years; I scooped ice cream instead. This is why my laundry resembles mounds of melting sundaes.
I keep on, because I want the chances to be good that my children are, in fact, putting on clean laundry, even if they are rummaging through clothing stuffed into a dollhouse attic or recovered from a bag of dog food. I keep on, because my husband is painting the kitchen Weston Flax and Whipple Blue and Decorator’s White for me, just because he likes me. He also does the things that I cannot bear to do, i.e., cooking, spider removal (they are allowed to live), silverfish execution (not allowed to live), hauling reeking trash, balancing the checkbook and figuring out how much begging and stealing will be necessary for a particular month. It is nice to be able to hand him the occasional pair of clean socks as a small token of my gratitude.
Either way, I get some quiet time, doing laundry, so it’s not a bad thing to do. It’s the closest I come to meditation. My mantra is Ox Ee Cleeen.
I like quiet.
But at bedtime, my daughters do not like quiet. My daughters hurl themselves onto the bed and onto my clean laundry. They stomp the laundry as if stomping grapes. The laundry yields nothing, but I try to yield patience.
“MOMMY! CAN YOU PUT ON TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT WHAT YOU REALLY REALLY WANT? PEEEEEESE?”
It is late. In the summer, they don’t believe us when we tell them that bedtime starts before the sun goes down. They want to Rock Out.
I consider their request, observe the pleading eyes, the already-wiggling bums.
“Okay,” I say.
Laundry is flying everywhere. Laundry cyclone. They are Rocking Out to the Spice Girls.
Sophie is pretty impressive, sporting new moves all the time. I’m not sure where she’s getting them. She knows most of the words. Plus, she is wearing close to nothing, giving her an authentic Spice Girl look. Little Spice. I try not to be disturbed by my six-year-old belting out, “IF YOU WANNA BE MY LOVERRRRRRR.” (I tried to change it to “IF YOU WANNA BE MY DAUGHTER, YOU GOTTA CLEAN UP YOUR ROOOOM,” but she was having none of that crap.)
For what Hattie lacks in crisp dance moves (and mastery of the very tricky “zig-a-zig-ahhh”), she makes up for in sheer spitting shrieking enthusiasm. “SO TELL ME WANT YOU WANT WHAT YOU REALLY REALLY WANT TELL ME ZIGGA ZIG WANT!”
I Rock Out with them. Do not think I stand idly by. This is my parenting forte, Rocking Out Badly to Pop Music. I am starting to think that this is the sort of thing they will actually remember: Rocking Out in the bright yellow bedroom, knocking laundry on the floor, watching Mommy shaking her tush and trying to rap like Ginger Spice.
Next on their playlist: “Since U Been Gone,” then “Hollaback Girl” [we sing This my SHHHH! This my SHHHH! and put our fingers over our lips as part of our groove. For now, it does the trick. I give Sophie another month before she realizes what SHHHH! is standing in for].
“ONE MORE! ONE MORE!” they scream.
So “Milkshake” is the last jam before bed. It is at this point in our bedtime dance party that David enters.
The girls are going wild, bouncing off the bed, shrieking and singing [DARN RIGHT, it's better than yours, DARN RIGHT, it's better than yours is the compromise on this one] along with Kelis and her magic milkshake.
Soph is doing her best Paris Hilton moves, shaking up her own first-grade milkshake. Again, I wonder, but I do not ask where she picked up these moves.
Her father stares at me, mouth slightly ajar. I shrug and shake my own milkshake for emphasis.
“DA BOYS ARE WAITING! DA BOYS ARE WAITING! DA BOYS ARE WAITING!” sings Hattie Belle. This is her favorite part of the song. She has taken off all her clothes at this point and is leaping from pillow to pillow on the bed, while her sister shimmies like a pro on one flowered sham. This is one crackalackin’ dance party. “WARM IT UP! DA BOYS ARE WAITING!”
“Oh my god,” says David.
“Daughters,” I say.
“We’re going to jail,” says David. “I think there’s a law against teaching them the Milkshake Song.
Kelis finishes her milkshake. I turn off the music.
“Okay. OKAY. Attention, Solid Gold dancers. Bedtime. Time to brush teeth.”
Sophie complies and heads down the hall. But Hattie Belle is still rocking out to her own inner music. “CARRY ME UPSIDE DOWN!” she yells.
As I carry her upside down to the bathroom, she chants, “WE’RE GOING TO JAIL! WE’RE GOING TO JAIL! WE’RE GOING TO JAIL!”
***
P.S. Speaking of jail and wicked dance moves (how often do I get to use that particular segue? possibly never again in this lifetime), have you seen, uh, this?
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