Doing the Dishes

During my teenage years I did my fair share of babysitting. When I would babysit I would get bored, so I would do the dishes. There were two main babysitting jobs that I remember the most and all the dishes I would do while I was there. Niether household had a dishwasher (well of course, except for me, the dual functioning babysitter! Duh!) and I did tons and tons and tons of dishes. Because I was bored. Some of the dishes were caked in food, and moldy. Some were hardly dirty, but I didn't know why they were stacked with the dirty ones, so I would wash them anyway. One woman I babysat for had one toddler, and her husband worked in shipping stuff and was always at sea. It was just her and the toddler. She had more silverware and big plates than my family did. In my family we had four teenagers and two parents. She had a LOT of dishes. And it seemed like they were always dirty. I would babysit a couple times a week, and I was always doing a couple sink loads. I did so many dishes that were stacks deep that I came up with a routine for it. A rhythm of the dishes. It was a beautifully orchestrated dance of dirty to clean and put away. At the time, I never understood why the mothers just LOVED me. Why they would pay me extra to do this mundane chore. I wasn't doing anything else. There was nothing on TV. The kids were being taken care of and happy and content playing. Well, now that I am older, I have dishes spilling off the counter tops and piling high, and my portable dishwasher is no longer allowed in the kitchen (remember the new floors? Yah. No more dishwasher because they don't want it scratching the floor when it is moved) I am realizing just how wonderful that must have felt to come home from work and see all the dishes done. You are welcome.

They are not the only benefactors of this service though. That was my training ground for handwashing dishes. My mother always had a dishwasher, so I never really learned how to do stacks of dishes without one until I did these babysitting jobs. The experience proved helpful these last few months. It makes me want to not have a dishwasher in my new home, so that my kids will be forced to help clean up after meals. I want them to learn how to pick up after themselves. This is a service my mother never really rendered to us. She took it upon herself to clean up after us. There were times as we got older that we were required to help with Saturday morning chores, but that was the extent of it. And it didn't happen regularly. As a result, my housekeeping skills have been atrocious. I'm improving little bit by little bit.

Here is the routine if you have a mile of dishes in your kitchen. Works best with breaks during soaking. Oh, and I forgot to add, this is with a double bowled sink. I believe if you have a single bowl, one of those "wash pans" (the square bucket things) would work for your washing sink.

First: clean out the sink you plan to wash in. Then fill with hot as you can stand it sudsy water. Fill with dishes. The closest dishes you can grab. In no particular order. If you are anal, like myself on occasion, grab all the silver (it needs to soak in super hot if you have crusties dried on there) and fill the top with glasses.

Second: Clean out your rinsing sink while the wash sink is soaking. Clean it out nice. Stack the dishes somewhere else, just don't forget about them.

Third: Wash the dishes in the washing sink and put in the rinsing sink. Put a fresh load of dirty dishes in the washing sink to soak.

Fourth: Clear out the dish drainer/drying area.

Fifth: Rinse off the dishes still sitting in the rinsing sink and place in the drying area.

Sixth: Wash dishes that are soaking, place in rinsing sink. Re-load washing sink.

Seventh: Dry and put away dishes the ones that are clean and rinsed.

Repeat the fifth through seventh steps as many times as necessary until done. Depending on how deep the stacks are and how dirty the dishes are, you may need to change the wash water. I usually take a break for no more than 10 minutes while I have some soaking. The longer you sit, the water will cool off and it is really icky to have to drain cold dirty wash water. Ew.

Good luck with your dishes!!