all of our kids have gone through a fascination with our home's laundry chute, but none of them have been as passionate or industrious as anthony. when anthony decides it's time to send the laundry down, you're lucky if there's a single stitch of clothing left on the second floor when he's through.

to begin, he swaggers to the bathroom and pushes, pulls and wills the rolling laundry bin into the hallway right next to the chute's small door. once there, he yells and grunts until someone places a step-stool in front of the chute so he can reach the hole to start throwing stuff down. when he gets towards the bottom of the rolling bin and unable to reach any more items, he gets off the step-stool, tips the bin on its side, climbs in and emerges with a few items at a time. he then climbs back onto the stool and makes them vanish in the wall. when the bin is finally empty, he rolls it back to its place in the bathroom. he then roams the bedrooms looking for any garments lazily cast about. once all the loose and truly dirty clothes have been dispensed of, anthony expands his rules of selection. when unsupervised, an ajar dresser drawer with visible clothes in it fall into anthony's 'eligible for cleaning' collection. granted when he finds such a stash, he crouches before the drawer, peers in and says, 'whazzat?', before pulling it open and looking brightly at the newfound stash. he methodically delivers the fresh and folded stacks of clothes one armful at a time to the chute. in the event his thirst is still not slaked he has been known to move on to drawers that were fully closed ... but easily opened.

for the record, doing laundry has never bothered me, but when half your weekly wash includes unworn and folded clothes, such antics become much less adorable.