Laundry and Lunchtime

Today I'm going to post (well complain) about the two motherhood related jobs that I am finding the most wearing at the moment. Motherhood, when I'm feeling most down on it, sometimes seems just like a string of not too difficult, but repetitive tasks. I once had a job working in a planetarium for the summer. The summer show was mostly automated - I introduced it, hit go, and pointed out a few stars at some point - that was it. I did a lot of mental arithmetic as I sat in the dark watching that show, and a calculated I saw it about 400 times over the course of a few months.... "Discover Mars" (said in deep, male, movie announcement voice... aargh!). I also couldn't tell you how many times I stood in front of a large sign saying when the next show was to be asked when the next show was, nor how many times I directed people to the bathroom.... Anyway I digress. The point is I'm not always super patient, and repetitive tasks do wear on me a lot.

Also to put you in mind of my mood this morning, I'm sitting her all damp and cold as I got soaked walking to work. Not a great Monday morning.

Anyway, little one now goes to daycare 5 days a week (instead of 4 before - we used to split Fridays, but can no longer manage that after the move). Her daycare does not provide lunch, so every day I must make her a lunch. I used to do this before, but only 3 days a week as her old place had "pizza Thursday" and somehow the switch to 5 days from 3 is really wearing.... I make lunch the night before (there's just not enough time for me to do this in the morning), and I particularly object to making lunch on Sunday night - it's just not fair for the week to infringe on Sundays that way... I wish I was better at thinking up quick healthy lunch meals that little one would eat. Sometimes I worry she's going to turn into tomato pasta with cheese!

My least favourite job number 2 is laundry. We're lucky to now have a washer in our kitchen instead of the basement, which I thought would really improve things, but that doesn't seem to be the case. I think for 4 reasons....

1. I had an excuse not to laundry when it was in the basement. When I was pregnant I physically couldn't fit down the back stairs carrying a laundry basket (fun fun), so I did very little laundry then, and then when little one came she "objected" to me going downstairs, so I got out of it that way. So my husband used to deal with most of the laundry... now I have no excuse.

2. The new washer is smaller - so that makes for more loads, and also takes longer. It's a washer/dryer in one, and the dryer is really slow... so it feels like the washer is always on.

3. Actually the noise really bothers me too - it's right in the house, so you can always hear it when it's one. The spin cycle in particular is really loud.

4. Cloth nappies/diapers. I have a post in my head which I plan to share with you soon, since maybe you'll all just think I'm making work for myself here, but I actually like using cloth for many reasons. Little one's old daycare however weren't keen, so we used to use disposables during the week. The new place is fine with cloth which is great for many reasons, but creates more washing - it's probably 1-2 extra loads a week of nappies/diapers. We're still very much adjusting to this new routine.

So big surprise you might say - motherhood is a lot of work. It's also of course very rewarding (necessary caveat for blog posting!). I guess the stress of the past few weeks (months) is catching up on me a little - so I'm sorry if I'm coming over a bit negative today. Anyway I'd love some tips on how to make laundry not such a big deal, and how to make lunch making more fun and easy.