Doing the Math behind our family

I get asked a lot of math questions about our life. How many diapers? How much laundry? I thought I would break it down for you so get out our pencils and paper, fire up the calculator and the slide rule, and here we go.

Laundry 18 loads per week
· 1 load of whites daily = 7 loads of whites (we use a lot of raggies)
· A load of colors every other day = 4
· Towels and washcloths 2 wash clothes daily for me and the 4 little boys= 8 washcloths * 7 days=56 washcloths plus 4 Thor towels 6 little boy towels 5 Mommy/dad towels = 15 towels = 2 loads of towels
· We wear a lot of red= 1 load of reds and red tinted clothes a week
· Sunday = 1 extra load of whites + 1 load of jeans + 1 extra load of colors
· Plus 1 load of someone's sheets per week
· Plus 1 load of someone had an accident and all their stuff goes in by itself

*Dave doesn't generate very many washcloths. I have yet to figure out why.

7+4+2+1+1+1+1+1=18

Now if we have an extra blowout, Scooter/Bettina laundry, bath mats, special wash instructions, etc. that all is in addition to the 18 loads.

Diapers 1632 and counting
That is just for the little boys.
· 1632/102 days (the boys are 102 days old)= 16 diapers a day or 8 per twin. I am basing the 1632 on the total number of diaper boxes that we have emptied since bringing them home from the hospital.
Now Thor goes through about 7 a day.
· 1 first thing in the morning
· 1 mid morning
· 1 after lunch
· 1 after nap
· 1 right before he comes home from day car or about 4pm on the weekends
· 1 in the evening
· 1 special night time diaper before bed.
So we are changing 23-24 diapers a day.

Dishes
Aarrrgghhh, the bane of my existence. Why is it that plastic does not dry in the dish washer?!
Between bottles, sippy cups, pumping supplies, Rubbermaid pitchers that we mix stuff up in we do a load of plastics just about every day. Add regular dishes on to that, drying all the plastic and the pots and pans that must be hand washed and I am starting to feel like I live in front of the sink.

Count 8 loads of dishes per week.

And finally sleep.

Bedtime is at 8:30 for the boys. If we start at 8 o'clock getting everyone ready and through the tub and in jammies, and read to and rocked and one last feeding or cup of milk and it is 9:15-9:20 by the time everyone is tucked in.

Then there are dishes and laundry to fold and toys to pick up and work to get ready for the next day. I go to bed as early as midnight and as late as 1:10.

Wolf gets up at 4:30 like clock work to get something to eat. (he is always the first one down.
If I get to go back to sleep after nursing him, my alarm goes off at 5:30. Tyr usually gets up around 6 and I leave for work at 6:45.

So I get a minimum of 3 hours and 20 minutes of sleep and a max of 5.

What ever the numbers there are three big reasons why it's worth it.