There is no one on the face of this earth for whom I feel more compassion than the mothers of children who are on half-day sessions at school.
My neighbor, Iris, went through an entire year of this schedule and we almost lost her. We all went over one day and literally dragged her from the utility room and set her down in the living room.
"Where are we?" she mumbled numbly.
"In your living room," we said gently.
"I've never been here before," she said.
"Of course you have. It's the room right off your kitchen and utility room. Remember?"
She shook her head.
"All I remember is in September I went into the kitchen and the utility room and I've been there ever since. Rinsing breakfast plates, putting them in the sink, clearing the table, starting the washer..."
"It's all right," we said. "Don't dwell on it."
"...and then picking up the pajamas and washing them, and making beds and it's lunchtime again and the kids are home and it's time to pick up the school clothes and wash them, and set the table and get lunch and rinse the plates and do the dishes and clear and it's dinnertime and I set the table and pick up the play clothes and wash them and get dinner and clear the table and rinse the dishes and start the washer...did I say that before?"
We nodded.
My kids went through it and it was a period that I paranoically refer to as the "Clothing Connection." It was like a game. Every time they moved ahead two spaces, they passed go and went directly to the closet. My five-year-old once set a record for changing clothes. Within a 14-hour period, he changed clothes nine times. He had an outfit for eating breakfast, going to school, running through the hose, using the phone, eating lunch, answering the door, riding his bike, weighing himself, and one that he wore because there was nothing clean left to wear.
I couldn't walk through a room without encountering a pile of his clothes. It was like picking your way through cow chips.
I'll never forget poor Iris if I live to be a hundred...her hands shriveled from hand washes, her sinuses filled with laundry bleach, her brain fogged by lint.
"When does it all end?" she said. "All this washing and ironing?"
We smiled. "On the day your kids start to do their own laundry."