I hate school socks. With an absolute passion. They are probably the one item that gets my hackles up the quickest. Sometimes I feel like school socks – especially the socks that get worn with a sports uniform rather than a formal uniform – are the absolute bane of my life.
‘What on earth?’ I can hear you thinking. ‘If socks are the biggest thing that she has to worry about, then omg she has it SOOOOOO freaking easy!’
And yes, I understand. I’d think exactly the same thing. And, to put it into perspective, sports socks aren’t REALLY the absolute bane of my life. I can’t think of what *is* the bane of my life, but socks probably isn’t it. They just make me mad.
It wasn’t always so. When it was my turn (many years ago now) to wear school socks, they were never a problem. It’s only been since my three cherubs have needed them, that the issue has raised its omg-I-hate-these-(insert swear word here)-school-socks head.
Let me explain, as I think my lack-of-sleep-addled brain is hindering me here.
I have three children: Miss10, Miss7 and Mr6. They wear a sports uniform three days per week, and a formal uniform the other two days. Now the formal uniform socks are white for girls, and grey for boys, so there isn’t too much difficulty sorting those out after my thrice-weekly wash. But the sports socks are the same for both boys and girls. And each of my children has three pairs, meaning that somewhere in my house there are 18 identical-looking (but not identical sized) socks.
The problem occurs because I’m not as vigilant with sock monitoring as I should be. I mean seriously, who wants to be seen to be the sock policeman! But most days, I turn into one without ever wanting to be.
I thought I has solved the problem around the middle of last year, when I bought three lingerie bags, one for each child. And because ‘lingerie’ is too hard a word to pronounce, we call them ‘mesh bags’ in my house.
So the idea was, whenever socks, singlets, or undies came off little bodies, they were deposited straight into the appropriate mesh bag. Tied up the top prior to washing (because those silly little zips broke during their very first trip through my washing machine) and then through the dryer, and then unpacked by the relevant owner. You’d think that would work, right?
Yeh. I thought so too.
The trouble is, the mesh bags – when they *do* get used by children – are also identical. Can you see where I’m going with this? Socks, undies, singlets all get mixed up. Still.
Yes, now the majority of all singlets, socks and undies are all (usually) in one of three places, but the problem of accident sock-swapping remains… and not every sock necessarily makes it into a bag in the first place.
Add to that, the fact that it’s generally somewhere around the ’90 seconds before we need to be leaving’ that a child realises that they have only one sports sock – and that on a Tuesday morning – and my blood pressure reaches boiling point in zero seconds flat.
So yesterday afternoon. the kids and I went to Spotlight. They each chose a ribbon, and I used my majorly un-phenomenal sewing skills to make the mesh bags into drawstring bags. Finished the last this morning.
Also yesterday, I received my patch for passing last week’s Krav Maga grading. (Yippee!)
but I guess that means that there’s more sewing ahead 🙁