Too Many Bowls and Towels? My Military-style Solution

Hi, everyone!  It's Lara Hammock from the Marble Jar channel and in today's video I'm going to tell you about my military style solution to bowls and towels everywhere courtesy of my kids. 

Two years ago, I basically lost it. I do laundry once a week on Thursdays and this time I washed and folded -- I kid you not -- 21 TOWELS.  18 bath towels and 3 beach towels. For a family of four -- this was beyond ridiculous.  Particularly when I noted that my husband, my daughter and I only had one towel a piece. That means my son managed to use 15 bath towels in one week.  Again, this strains credulity since this is the kid who requires incessant nagging just to get in the shower once a day.  Maybe he was using a different towel for each body part?

His problem is a combination of forgetfulness and laziness. After showering, he leaves his towel in his room -- generally on the floor although we DO have hooks to hang them in each kid's room.  But he the next time forgets to bring a towel with him to the shower and the linen closet is conveniently located right next to the bathroom door. Apparently, for each shower, he had gotten into the habit of just grabbing a new towel -- or 4.  Well -- I had already noticed this problem and had been nagging him reuse his towels when we had the 21 towel week.  So, that was the end of that. 

Here's what I did:

1. I went to Home Depot and bought an exterior doorknob -- one that has a lock that you open with a key. Then I changed the knob on the linen closet and hid the key. So, now we have a locked linen closet. My husband and daughter both know the hiding place for the key, but guess who doesn't?  I got a little panicky at one point when the key went missing and was seriously contemplating having to break the door down with an axe, but thankfully it turned up before I did any real damage. 
2. I went though the towels that we already had and picked colors for the kids. Then I set out 2 bath towels, 1 hand towel, and 2 face towels in each color for each kid. 
3. While I was at it, I decided to address another pet peeve that I have. I can't be the only parent who is driven nuts by bowls and cups left around the house, can I?  My son has a serious cereal addiction and leaves his cereal bowls -- welded by dried milk to whatever surface he's left them on -- all over the house.  For him, there isn't any pain associated with this since -- when he wants another bowl of cereal -- there is always another clean bowl available. Well, no more. I was sick and tired of nagging him to clean up his bowls and cups.  So, I went to Target and bought a bowl, a mug and a plate in two patterns -- one set for each kid. I stopped short of locking up the kitchen cabinets since that would be inconvenient in the extreme and people might think that I had gone round the bend.  
4. I also invested in an easy to use, wand-style dish washing brush that self dispenses detergent. I wanted to make cleaning up as simple as possible. 

Then, I sat my kids down, first I issued them their new towel sets.  I told them that these were their new towels and that they couldn't use any others.  I offered to continue to wash towels on Thursdays, but they would need to hang them up to prevent them from getting stinky throughout the week.  Next -- I gave them their new place setting.  The rule was, if they were eating with the family -- like during dinner, they could eat off of the family plates, but any other time -- snacks, breakfast, etc. -- they needed to use their individually issued bowl, plate and cup. After each use, they would need to wash it and set it out to dry. If they forgot, then the next time they needed to use it, they would have to find it, wash it (and I warned them it would be much harder after the food had been sitting for a while), and dry it before they could use it again.  If I caught them using the wrong bowl, there would be a penalty -- they would have to run down to the end of the street and back which is on an annoyingly steep hill.  

This is a little bit of a crazy solution to a little bit of a crazy problem. The towels have been a unmitigated success.  It's enforced by a lock on the linen closet after all. The plates and bowls are spottier. It really depends on whether I'm on top of enforcing the rules. We've recently gone back to this system and somehow having the different plates and bowls does help them to remember to clean up after themselves. 

I'd love to hear your ideas on this or other solutions!  Leave your experiences and thoughts in the comments section and thanks for watching.