There are some bits of motherhood that make it clear to me just how blissful ignorance really is. I lived almost 30 years of my life without knowing how difficult it would be to teach four boys that they really truly honestly are expected to don clean socks and underwear every day. Without fail. Even if it is raining. Even if they are in a particular hurry to get dressed so they can get back to reading that great book. Even if an ALIEN SPACESHIP lands on the lawn when they are getting out of bed -- EVEN THEN, clean underwear and socks.
Recently one of my sons (details redacted to protect the incorrigible) was telling me earnestly that he couldn't change his underwear because he didn't have any to change into. I said, "How could that be? I'm caught up on laundry." We agreed that it was a mystery -- it wasn't in a brother's dresser and it wasn't in the hamper. Things disappear around here pretty regularly and they almost always turn up again.
I brought a backpack up from the basement so I could pack and I thought it seemed a little too bulky. Apparently, when I said, "Unpack the clothes you took to Grandma's house and put the bag on the shelf in the basement," only the second half of the message made it through. Perhaps I can blame the alien spaceship on the lawn and its Sound-Absorbing Destructo-Beam. Whatever the reason, more than half of this boy's underwear and socks had been in the basement since the summer.
Now I do a lot of laundry. I do my best to make sure everybody always has clean clothes to wear, even if finding them might require an occasional rummage through a basket of unfolded things. But I don't do enough laundry for a kid to get by on three pairs of underwear. Part of me wants to know exactly how seldom he was heeding my "every single day!" admonition, if he's only mentioning in November that it's a problem. The rest of me -- the rest of me thinks ignorance is bliss.
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