Well, we’re not REAL Pirates, and they don’t wear POLKA dots.  But they do wear dots on the inside of their clothing.  This is an old trick that my neighbor told me about after our third Pirate was born.  Most of you probably know it, but if you don’t know it and you have several Pirates or several Princesses, you are gonna hug my neck for telling you.

First get out the Standard Issue Mom Equipment Black Sharpie Permanent Marker.  Keep this in your apron pocket while you process your children’s laundry.  As you fold their clean clothes you’re gonna mark them to identify what belongs to whom.  Make dots on the inside of the clothes so that the marks won’t be seen when the item is being worn, but in a conspicuous location so that it is easily seen when you are folding their clothes.

Here is the system for which child gets which amount of dots.

Oldest Pirate and Princess get one dot.

Second oldest – two dots.

And so on.

I do hope that you don’t have difficulty distinguishing Pirate clothing from Princess clothing.  At our house this is not a problem.  And, of course, we don’t bother to dot hers, duh, she’s the only one.

But, for the Pirates, as the clothing is handed down, I add one dot.  Hence, the largest Pirate has only one dot, and The Squid has a nice pattern of 5 dots in his things.  Easy, huh?

The point of the marking is that it will be easier for you to quickly identify what is whose and thereby get the job done more quickly.  But there is a secret benefit that will become apparent as the children get old enough to help with the laundry.  They can fold and put away the laundry without needing to consult you about the identity of the owner of each and every article of clothing.  More laundry freedom!

By the way, the Pirate who owns the shirts also took the photo!  Didn’t he do a great job!

Related posts:

1. The Plan – part 3 – Laundry
2. Clothes Pin Purse
3. Feelin’ Kinda Redneck
4. Ultimate Blog Party – ‘09