Stretching Laundry (ode to early mom bloggers)

This morning as I was cleaning the kitchen and wiping some chocolate residue, I grabbed the dewy droplets gathered around the sink with the clean end of my cloth before running it back to the laundry area.  It took me back to my beginning blogging days, which weren't writing at all.  I read, enjoyed, literally devoured my favorites.  Blogging was a medium that spoke to me.  It hasn't held the timeless appeal that books have, but it felt social in a way reading just never had before that.

It was in one of those early blogs, Amy's Humble Musings, where she gave tips for other new moms on how to "survive."  Seriously.  At that stage of my momming game, that was what I was looking for advice on.  I happened to be pregnant with my third child and sick through much of the day.  Stealing a glance at a post written by someone in similar shoes, on the old laptop on our kitchen counter, was the highlight of my very long days.

Two of her tips I remember to this day.  One, was to buy all white socks and anyone close to the same size feet could wear them.  Also if they are all the same color and style, NO MATCHING!  Any two are a pair!  My over use of exclamation points here is to emphasize how life changing this idea was for me.  I handled socks that way for years and its only been the last couple that we've branched out to different varieties of colors and styles and certain pairs for certain individuals :).  My oldest three and I have similarly sized feet so we could totally do this again if needed.

The second tip of hers was to maximize the use of laundry.  Big families have soooo much laundry in case you haven't heard.  Especially when a new baby is in the house.  Her tip was that if the baby spit up or there was a big spill on the kitchen floor to wipe up, grab something from the dirty laundry! For example spilled milk on the kitchen floor could be sopped up with a tshirt or towel that already was headed for the wash.  It makes sense, if something is headed there already to make more use of it than dirtying a second cloth.

So as I used the last clean end of my dirty rag on some water droplets today it took me back to those days.  The memories of sharing tips with "friends" by reading early blogs were warm ones.  The desperation and loneliness of early motherhood that led me to them?  Not so much.  It wasn't a bad stage of life, it was just that, a stage.  I was young, thankfully, my body I guess had the stamina to get through what it needed to bring to life all those babies.  And the best part?  I survived.  :)

Rocks in My Dryer, Musings of a Housewife, Amy's Humble Musings....they all got me through.  I don't think any of those ladies are doing quite the same work in quite the same platform as they did then, but I sure am grateful for this medium and what those early adapters did to enhance the life of this mom.