"I don't know how you do it with 4..."
A couple of systems from our day-to-day life that keep me sane
Discovering I was pregnant with twins was a shock. The pregnant bit was intentional, it just never occurred to me there may be two in there. When the realisation hit that we were going to have four kids aged 4 and under I messaged my besties.
‘How can I manage 4? Who has 4 children?!’.
Sensing my rising panic, one replied reassuringly, ‘I’m sure a lot of people do.’
‘WHO??’ I fired back. ‘Who do we actually know that has 4 children?’ Yeh, nobody.
I know and see quite a few big families now. They hang out at the same places, like Twins Club on a Tuesday morning at the village hall, and on the beach in Norfolk, because holidaying abroad with loads of kids is tricky. Some of these couples even chose to have 4 or more kids consciously, not in the surprise and accidental way we did. Kudos to them.
It felt like the arrival of the twins was a do or die moment for us. Deri and I acknowledged that we had to switch our tactics from ‘man on’ to ‘zone defence’. The first few years were pretty exhausting, but as with anything, you settle in.
Trial and error. Constant iteration. A slow lowering of standards and expectations.
“I don’t know how you do it”
I’ve heard this a lot. I’m never 100% sure what ‘doing it’ means, but I think just generally keeping everyone alive, clean(ish), fed, happy, and where they need to be on time(ish). It’s a tricky one to respond to as I hate the idea that I’m presenting some sort of look at me, I’ve got it all sorted solution to life. Because I assure you, I haven’t. But if I think about it, we have had to put some ‘efficiency systems’ in place along the way to help us out. So, I’m going to share a couple of insights to my systematising!
(When I did the ‘brain type’ quiz in Simon Baron-Cohen’s The Pattern Seekers I scored super high on Empathy Quotient (EQ) and very low on Systemizing Quotient (SQ), as a result of not being very interested in aerodynamics or train networks. But if he’d asked about my interest in systemising to save time and boredom, it would have been a different outcome. I’m all over that. This is a cool review of the book if you are interested to know more - click here).
I digress. I’m not very comfortable about the idea of this article. Perhaps I’m putting it off. It was my Book Club girls who assured me that people really would want to see my Excel spreadsheet for grocery shopping. If that’s not your thing, then look away now…
Keeping everyone clean
Oh the washing! There’s so, so much.
We talked about our washing systems at Book Club (my Book Club is both wonderful and only, perhaps, 20% about books). One of my Book Clubbers does her family washing all on one day, the same day each week. This discovery is still blowing my mind. If we don’t run our machine at minimum twice a day, the washing situation spirals out of control.
A large washing machine is a necessity, and it must never be run at below full capacity. I can feel my blood pressure rising even at thought of running half a load of whites, and then discovering some more white things that got missed. No, no, no. What an epic waste of time.
Our washing gets sorted daily into 4 bins: whites, lights, brights, and darks. I’m pissed that when I designed this system I forgot about delicates. They get chucked on top of the whites box and it irritates me. Anyway, here it is….
I like this set up because it makes it quick to bung a load on, and you can choose whichever box is over-flowing (see point above re maximum capacity!).
I’m lucky to have a utility room - it really helps for efficiency. Everything is within reach. Washing powder and fabric conditioner in the pull out cupboard on the right, sorting bins, washing machine, tumble dryer, drying rack, and ironing basket. Boom.
And now, I have to admit to being a hypocrite. I went vegetarian after reading David Attenborough’s A Life On Our Planet, but my tumble dryer is running almost constantly. I’m sorry Dave, I think you’re a legend and I do care about our planet, it just seems that perhaps, maybe, I care about my sanity a little more….
The ironing, folding, and putting away debacle I haven’t cracked. Answers on a postcard for this one please. Some people tell me they just don’t iron, but I can’t work out how to salvage a shirt or a pair of linen trousers without ironing them?
Also, where do all the socks go?? I made this peg board and named it ‘The Department of Odd Socks’. It’s always a busy place.
Keeping everyone fed
Do you do that thing where you think you have 30 meal ideas and when you sit down to plan the week all you can think of is jacket potato? It used to drive me mad that half the time I spent grocery shopping was just staring into the middle-distance trying desperately to think up meal ideas.
And then (and I know this is a luxury problem), you have to type each item in manually because the Tesco website doesn’t let you save a favourites list. Ffs Tesco.
Anyway, now I have a system. Weekdays we have a fortnightly meal rota. Weekends, I live a little crazy and choose something that takes my fancy (from a list I keep for inspiration!).
It gets better. I have an Excel sheet with several lists….the week 1 menu items, the week 2 menu items, things we regularly need for our start of week delivery, things we regularly need for our weekend delivery. (FYI, you have to put a comma after each item on the list, because Tesco says that’s how it must be).
With the Excel, my thinking time has all but disappeared. I just copy and paste the lists I need, then I add the things Alexa has been remembering for me throughout the week. Job done.
Except there’s always that moment when the doorbell rings at 9pm and I audibly groan, ‘Oh god, the shopping’s here’. Because it obviously is really arduous to have to put into cupboards all the things that I expressly requested, that someone else has picked and packed, and someone else has driven to my front door, at exactly the time I asked them to. Ffs Tesco.
So there you go. This has been a weird one, but we will see if the Book Clubbers are right. I decided it was sufficiently on brand to share such ‘wisdom’ with the WW crew, and also to let the writing experiment stay random.
I’d genuinely love to know how you ‘do it’ and if you have any tips for better systematising. I have some others, but I also need to do the food shopping. So, those are for another day…perhaps.
This is impressive!
I don't know if this will help any, but with regards to the socks, I've just decided that we have one sock color/style per size. So the 4-year-old gets orange socks, the 1-year-old gets white socks, mom gets dad socks, dad gets white with Adidas logo buy regular shoes, and then has his dress socks. It makes the sorting really easy. I never have to match pairs!