Folding Socks

As much as I dislike chores that must be repeated frequently such as doing dishes or washing baby bottles, I don't mind doing laundry.  For some reason, having all the clothes sorted, folded and put away makes me content.  Doing the same with dishes and baby bottles does not.  Maybe it's the folding aspect of the chore and making neat piles of each childs' clothes. It would also explain why my least favorite part of the job of laundry - other than pulling a shirt out of the dryer and remembering that my daughter spilled chocolate ice cream down the front of it and I forgot to check the status of the stain before heat-setting it in the dryer - is folding socks.

The socks need to be paired, then folded in some way so that they can be found together again in the drawer even after a two year old has shuffled through them looking for bigger socks. The only solution I've found is to roll the cuffs together, a process I dislike because one sock gets stretched out and slouchy.

For the adult socks, mine are reasonably easy to match.  They're colored and patterned and all I need to do is lay them together and fold in half.  My husband's socks aren't too much worse.  There are only three varieties and colors and I can fold them as I do my own.  The trouble comes with the socks that are varying shades of faded white.

The kids' socks are another story.  My son's socks are generally like my husband's, varying shades of formerly white, however they cannot be folded together and stacked in neat piles because of my son's search through his drawer for bigger socks. But if they are all the same whitish socks, what's the problem?

The varying shades of white.  I like to keep the two that are grass-stained together and the two that are sunscreen-stained together and two that are mud-stained together and I certainly don't want a bright white sock to end up with one of these. So I have to match the stain colors.

The other problem is that I don't do our Walmart shopping. My husband does, so putting 'boys' socks size 3' on the shopping list could have any number of results.  'Girls' socks size 2 - not pink' awarded me with below the ankle socks - half of which were pink - in January.  We are not in a climate where below the ankle socks are usable in January.  Nor can the cuffs be rolled and the pair kept together in the drawer. I don't complain about this to him because I'd rather deal with unfoldable socks than Walmart.

My least favorite thing about socks is that they are small.  They hide in the feet of pajamas, stick to shirts and escape from the laundry basket - although I suspected they have beagle help for this. So folding a pair of socks doesn't reduce the to be folded pile as much as one of my husband's XL shirts does. Folding socks just isn't at gratifying.

Thank goodness laundry day isn't until Monday.
Have a good weekend.