The Trouble with Underwear

Not mine. Let's just be clear. It's not my underwear that's the problem.

It's just that it's laundry day... tomorrow is laundry day, too, for that matter. I really don't mind doing laundry as much as I used to, which is surprising when you consider that I have WAY more laundry to do now than when I minded it so much. Just another instance of kids putting things in the proper prespective. The only thing that I really dislike about doing the laundry is folding the dreaded load of socks and underwear. It really annoys me. And in one load, there could be a million socks to be matched and half a million pairs of underwear. At least it seems that way. That's why I managed to rationalize that I have too many things going on with DH gone, I just didn't have time to do it when I did the laundry last time. So now I had a load and a half (because we'd been rooting through the basket looking for underwear) to fold this time. UGH.

The real issue is that I've got three boys, two of which wear the same size. Now, it's all been relatively easy up till now. One of them has always been a tighty-whitey guy, one prefers boxer briefs, and one still wears character underwear. One likes the gray bottom athletic socks, one likes character socks (not the same one that likes the character underwear), and one likes solid colors to match his clothes. Easy enough, once you get the hang of it. However, all of a sudden, the lines between tastes and preferences are getting blurry. Character sock man thinks that maybe he's getting too big for spiderman and should wear gray bottom athletic socks like brother. Whitey-tighty (or is it tighty-whitey?) guy thinks that boxer brief guy seems really comfortable in his britches and maybe he'll give boxer briefs a try. So now, not only is it tedious to match socks and get all the underwear right side out, but I'm going to have to take notes or make a list or something to remember whose socks are whose.

So here's the thing. How do families with more than three kids handle this issue? And how will I handle it when I have even more kids? I remember seeing an episode with the Duggers saying that all the boys wear black socks and all the girls wear white. I get it. But how do you distinguish sizes and which socks are whose? Does everyone just grab a clean pair and go? And sock sharing may all be fine and dandy, but who really wants to do that with underwear, clean or not? Maybe I should just give them all a color to stick with. You always wear green socks and underwear, you always wear blue, and you red. Forget about whether or not their socks clash with their clothes. Don't worry if you can see their colored undies through their khaki dress pants in church on Sunday. Really?

Or maybe this... just have the boys find, sort and fold their own socks and underwear?

Sounds good to me.