Motherhood really should come with a job description, and if it did, mine would read: “Must possess the stamina to fold approximately 17 loads of laundry per week while simultaneously answering the eternal question of footwear: where is the other shoe?” Forget résumés, this is my actual skill set. I am not exaggerating when I say 90% of my life is staring down overflowing hampers and the other 10% is interrogating small humans about why only one sneaker made it home from the playground.
Let’s talk laundry first. The sheer volume is staggering. Four people in this house, and somehow it feels like I’m laundering clothes for a small army stationed in Miami. Towels alone are enough to make me want to throw in the beach umbrella and surrender. Nico changes shirts twice a day because he “doesn’t like how this one feels,” and Anthony somehow manages to get ketchup on his pajamas before bedtime. Rex, bless him, tosses his socks in the general direction of the hamper, which means I get to go on an archaeological dig under the couch every few days. And me? I wear the same three mom-uniform outfits on rotation, yet my basket is always full. Laundry is a trap, and I’ve fallen into it permanently.
And then—oh, the shoes. Where is the other shoe? WHERE. IS. THE. OTHER. SHOE? I have said this phrase more times than I have said “I love you.” That’s not because I don’t love my family—I do, deeply—but because these people cannot, under any circumstances, keep their footwear together. Nico can lose one sneaker between school and the car. Anthony can make a flip-flop vanish inside a two-bedroom house. It’s like a magic trick, except no one is laughing. The worst is when we’re already late (which is always), and I’m yelling, “Just put on any shoes! I don’t care if they match!” while Rex pretends to check the car for missing footwear but is really sipping coffee and scrolling his phone.
I sometimes fantasize about a world where laundry and shoes don’t rule me. Like, what if clothes washed themselves? What if every shoe came with a GPS tracker? I know I’d probably still trip over Legos, but my blood pressure would drop at least twenty points. And maybe, just maybe, I wouldn’t spend 40% of my mental energy plotting how to avoid Mount Sockmore that keeps piling up on the dryer.
But here’s the funny thing—laundry and shoes are kind of the soundtrack of motherhood. They’re the proof that kids are running, playing, living messy little lives. Every ketchup stain, every grass-smudged knee, every lonely sandal stuck under the bed is just evidence that they’re in the thick of childhood. And one day, maybe sooner than I want to admit, the laundry pile will shrink, the shoes will stay in pairs, and the house will be quiet.
So I’ll keep folding, and sighing, and asking where the other shoe is. And maybe I’ll even smile about it next time I find Anthony’s missing flip-flop in the refrigerator—because yes, that actually happened.