Organizing Socks

I spent a large portion of my afternoon working on a project that I hope will save me a lot of time in the future.  Recently, socks have stressed me out during laundry.  Ashlyn and I wear the same size socks now.  And so do Joshua and Caleb. So unless I have to put away John or Jonathan's socks, I am not sure which room to put my clean socks.  When the boys help with folding, it gets even worse.

I have always wanted to mark on the socks somehow to keep track of where they go.  But it seemed like a big job and a lot of work.  I also worried that once I have a system in place, and their feet grew, I would have to start over.  But then I realized how often I buy socks for people who claim they have none (when really their socks were piled in another room).  I also noticed we hardly pass down socks like we do all the other boys clothes.  So I figured I might as well give it a try...

It didn't take too long to do it.  I went through all the socks in their drawers and threw out all of the mismatches, socks with holes, or socks that were stretched or stained.  I also moved all of the wrong socks to the right drawer.  Then we went shopping for some new socks and put them all in piles on the floor.  We decided to go with birth order for the number so every person could remember their number.  The idea is when they help me with laundry, they can look for numbers that match, fold them together, and then put them in the right room based on their number.  I'm hopeful it will work.  John's socks were the only ones not marked.  We don't plan on having socks similar to his for a few years so those ones are easy for people to put away.  We saved #1 for him for later though. We also did not mark the black ones, which are only a few and usually only worn on Sundays.  I have to admit though that those are the first ones I fold and put away when I do laundry.  I usually leave a huge pile of white ones for the kids.  So I will probably keep track of the colored ones for now :)