This week’s topic is frighteningly broad, and leaves me with 2 options: I can pick one aspect and beat it to death or I can skim over everything, trying to cover too much at once and leaving you feeling entirely unsatisfied.

Maybe there’s a third choice: try to make my post so entertaining that you won’t notice you didn’t really learn anything useful.  Oh, I like that.  Let’s do that.  Wait, does it work if I tell you the plan?

I’m kidding – or stalling, if you prefer to call it that.  Actually, I have LOTS of experience with mass quantities of clothing for mass quantities of people.  The question is whether you should follow my example or learn from my mistakes.  There’s a fine line, and believe me: when it comes to clothing for 12 you don’t want to find yourself on the wrong side.  You could spark a revolt, or a mass outbreak of nudity.

The trick is maintaining the general sanity and the clothing at the same time.  Not every day can be Nude Fasting TV Day.

Buying All Those Clothes

Buying is the easy part.  We love thrift shopping for everything but underclothes.  Shopping for secondhand clothes requires a bit more of a time investment, and nicer shops may have prices that rival those of some new clothes, but you’ll usually find much better quality, more variety, and it’s a good way to avoid pieces that are too trendy.  By the time it’s on the thrift store rack, you’ll know if the newest style is going to last more than 10 minutes.  We have a new way of handling clothing purchases and other personal expenses for the older girls, and I can’t wait to tell you about it in an upcoming post.

Did you know that Goodwill offers gift cards and accepts returns?  It’s just like shopping at any other store now, and in this new thrifty era even the social stigma is gone – not that some of us ever cared about that.

Buying becomes even easier when friends make it entirely unnecessary.  I do my best to let others know that we are never, under any circumstances, insulted by offers of hand-me-downs.  We love it when our friends cull their closets and give us that skirt we’ve been eyeing since the first time they wore it.  One time the Long ladies sent us some hand-me-downs, samples, proto-types, etc, and Oh My Word We Had Fun Were Blessed.  Can you imagine the riches that come forth when they make room in their closets for new creations?  We can now.

Storing All Those Clothes

Storing clothing for a big family is a much bigger challenge, especially when your home is smaller than the standard-issue McMansion.  In our home, the children usually store their clothes on the floor or under the bed.

Yours too, huh?

Well, that’s not the officially sanctioned plan.  The clothes are supposed to be stored in fabric bins on cubby shelves or hung in the closets, and we really do love our current setup.  The bins won’t hold up forever, especially when kids overstuff them with wadded up jeans, but they are cheaper and easier to replace than a busted drawer.  They also make for a cute, flexible system that can be expanded, rearranged and redecorated as desired.

Actually, that photo is from months ago when we first set up the system.  That’s when I loved it.  Now you don’t want to see it, though even at its worst it still looks far better than dressers ever did in our house.  Let’s just say my kids have the pack rat gene.  I don’t know where they got it.  Why yes, I do have 3 broken sewing machines and a serger which I have never learned to use.  Why do you ask?
Link up and tell how you manage clothing for your family!

Please remember to follow the linky rules.

See what the other moms are doing about it:

• Smockity Frocks
• Common Room
• Raising Olives

Upcoming topics for 4 Moms:

• January 26 - Q&A
• February 2 - Scriptures and/or stories we rely on for comfort/encouragement as a homeschooling family

Recent topics:

• January 12 – 4 Moms: snacks and appetizers for a crowd {linky}
  
• January 7 - 4 Moms: Teaching grammar
  
• December 15 - 4 Moms: Gift shopping for a crowd
• December 8 - 4 Moms’ favorite holiday recipes {linky}

About 4 Moms, including a complete list of all past topics

Do you have questions about big families?  I have answers.  They might not be the answers you were hoping for but since the title of this post promises answers, I’ll give it a shot.

Q. Do momys…do the library?

We used to, but haven’t checked out books in several years.  Since the cost of gas has gone up and our library is in the opposite direction from the rest of civilization, it just wasn’t cost effective.  Our smalltown library has a very poor selection and an interlibrary system that is sadly lacking.  For the price of a trip there and back and a second trip to return the books – and maybe some late fees or interlibrary loan fees (it’s not free here) we found that we could buy several good used books instead of checking out a lot of trash and tripe.  Since we try to read books that are worth owning, this makes sense to us.

The upside is that we’ve been able to build our library over the years without spending any more than we would have in gas and library fees.  The downside is…we’ve been able to build our library over the years…

Q. Can you show more pictures of your bookshelves? How do you organize your books? Dewey decimal, chronologically, by subject, by author?

A. [stifled maniacal laughter]  Are you thinking of organizing your books like mine?  You’re smart to ask for photos first!  Our library is a work in progress for several reasons:

1. We perpetually have more books than space. It’s a sickness.  We just can’t stop buying books, and when we try to wean ourselves off somebody invariably gives us new books or points us toward a sale we can’t resist.
2. It’s not just me and Perry. I think the condition is genetic, because the children suffer from it as well.  They’re all building their personal libraries while we build our family library.  In a house of 1183 square feet.  Bringing home new books is like a game of chicken.  Who will quit first?
3. We let our children use the library. Somebody isn’t crazy about the aesthetic appeal of clearly labelled shelves, which makes it highly unlikely that a book will ever find its way from the hands of a child back to its rightful home.
4. My organizational system is only a rough draft in my head.  It goes something like this:  …never mind.

Seriously, I do have a system.

• Fiction is divided roughly into age groups: board books are on the bottom shelves, easy readers are next up, then chapter books, with classics/mature fiction up high.  Poetry has a shelf of its own.
• Theology is in alphabetical order by author’s last name.
• Art & music are together, as they should be.
• History is divided into American history, world history, and reformation.  Books within each category were originally organized by title or subject, though that fell by the wayside long ago.  Right now the children’s history books are integrated with the adult ones, but I don’t know if they’ll stay that way.
• There is a separate bookcase for homemaking/how to books.
• Another bookcase holds science, with each shelf covering a general area: field guides, animals, earth science, creation vs. evolution, etc.
• Various sets – fiction and nonfiction, juvenile and adult –  are located anywhere and everywhere.
• A few precious autographed, antique or rare books are up high, out of reach of small illiterate hands.
• Reference books are together.

I’m sure there’s more, but that gives a rough idea of the layout.  Photos?  Not today.  No way!

The children each have at least one shelf of their own personal books in the library in addition to their own cubbies in the bedroom.  Some have far more.  They also have books in storage, and we’re considering enacting a new rule that goes roughly thus:

“Any books that do not fit on your personal shelf shall be considered excessive.  If you are not willing to put your excessive books into general circulation (still retaining personal ownership), they must be put into storage so that we will have to space to acquire said titles for the general family library.”

I would love to replace the bookcases in the library with individual wall-mounted shelves running the full length of the walls and reaching from floor to ceiling.  I think we could fit far more in our limited space and it would look nicer too.  It’s on my to-do list.

I would also love to run a single high shelf around most of the rooms in our house. Books would be within reach of most adults but above eye level, leaving the walls with a fairly empty feel, I think, rather than the cluttered look when we had our bookcases spread throughout the house.  If my calculations are accurate, we could house most of our books this way, even in our small home, getting rid of most of the bookcases and opening up more space for general living.  We could hang framed photos just below and create a unified decorative theme throughout the house.

What do you think of that idea?  Can you picture it?

Q. how do you get packed for a vacation…delegate or do it all yourself? )

A.  I decide how many outfits we each need to take based on the length and reason of our trip – e.g. 2 formal and 4 informal.  Then I let the 4 oldest girls (13-18yo) pack independently, offering opinions as requested.  The next few children down the line (ages 11, 10, and maybe the 7yo) pack for themselves with heavy oversight from either me or the older girls.

I pack for myself and the 3 or 4 youngest.  I also do most of Perry’s packing and he fills in the gaps.

That covers the clothes and personal possessions.  For the rest, we often make a list on the whiteboard and check off items as they are packed.  This way nearly anyone can help.  The older girls sometimes help with food prep while I pack for the younger ones, but we have become pretty adept at trading off duties.  The biggest goal and challenge for me is simply keeping everyone and everything moving forward.

Q. How do you get all the house cleaning done? Does it ever get done all in one day, or do you do it one room/section of the house per day? How do you divide the cleaning chores?

A. Define “house cleaning.”  We pick up, sweep, etc. in the kitchen, dining room, living room and bathroom several times/day.  Deeper cleaning gets done as needs are noticed.  Not always the best policy, since you’re most likely to notice footprints on the wall, snotprints on the windows, or dust bunnies divebombing from the ceiling fans while you have a houseful of company.

Our division of labor changes a couple of times/year, but here is the current breakdown:

• Perry (5yo) – empty small trash cans, any job relating to poop (I promise, he likes this), swat flies
• Rachael (7yo) – take out compost, straighten toy area, AM dish team
• Becca (10yo) – dining room, deck, AM dish team
• Natalie (11yo) – library, trash, AM dish team
• Megan (13yo) – kitchen, laundry room, PM dish team
• Lydia (14yo) – animals, yard pickup, PM dish team
• Kaitlyn (16yo) – living room, bathroom, PM dish team
• Deanna (18yo) – laundry, PM dish team

I confess our younger ones tend to slide these days.  They are capable of more, and our bigger girls did far more at a younger age.  This was partly because I needed the help and partly because I invested the time to train them.  The temptation for the young mother is to do it all herself because she doesn’t have time to train her young ones to help.  The temptation for the older mother is do it all with the older children with they don’t need the help of the young ones.

Q. How do you organize socks?

A. Our sock solution used to be easy and straightforward.  All our children were girls.  All of their socks were white and roughly the same style.  There were only 2 things to know:

1. If 2 socks are the same size, they match.
2. If they fit you, they’re yours.

Now, with 4 teens in the house and 2 more close on their heels plus 2 boys thrown into the mix, it’s infinitely more complicated in practice, though it can still be summed up rather easily.  The current policy reads something like this:

1. If you don’t like white socks, buy your own.
2. If you buy your own, you’d better recognize them when they come out of the laundry.
3. If your socks look just like mine, they’re mine too.

And that’s all, folks.  Sorry if I didn’t get to your question today, but I’m feeling very much like  too little butter spread over too much toast.  Thin, but not in a size 6 way.  More in a mother-of-10-needs-to-spend-less-time-on-the-computer way.

The other Moms are taking questions this week too.

• Smockity Frocks, who reminds me that I could make better use of the spiral notebooks I bought in August.
• Raising Olives, who answers questions about science in her homeschool curriculum.
• Common Room, who discusses the mechanics of having adult children at home.

Upcoming topics for 4 Moms:

• Surprise, but not for the reason you think. It’s because I’m too lazy to look up the list of planned topics.  Really.  We have a list.  You don’t believe me?

Recent topics:

• October 20 - 4 Moms find time for projects
• October 13 - 4 Moms: Keeping the food budget down as the prices go up {linky}
• October 6 – 4 Moms: keeping up with housework in the midst of homeschooling
  
• September 29 - 4 Moms talk about memorization {and 2 giveaways!}

About 4 Moms, including a complete list of all past topics