A Cocktail of Emotions
Every few months this dark cloud settles in over Moanna’s room. It feels like the weight of a thousand elephants are trampling on my chest when I enter her room. I go through five gazillion emotions as Moanna’s dresser stares at me with it’s beady eyes. There are few chores that I loathe more than going through Moanna’s cloths. I feel nauseous with anxiety just thinking about it. It’s a job that I do not feel qualified for.
For one thing, I have to decide what still passes as “fits” and what qualifies as torture if I continue to shove the poor girl into it. I know the t-shirt that shows her belly even with her pants pulled up to her arm pits probably needs to go, but it’s too darn cute. Plus if that shirt is too small, it means she’s not a baby anymore. I can’t handle that kind of stress in my life right now.
Then, I come across a few outfits that I don’t like and I am ecstatic that they no longer “fit.” Technically she can still wear them, but only for a few more months, so clearly the should go. Do you know what this means? This means my baby is growing up to be such a big girl!
Things are going great, until I dig really deep and find the most precious outfit that still has the tags on it. Of course it doesn’t fit because it’s been in the back of her closet since before she was born. I can’t believe that she grew too fast, and I never got to dress her up in this. How could I forget we had this outfit? I feel so low and lousy when I come across a dress that someone gave to Moanna and she never got to wear it because I didn’t remember it existed?
After I’ve gone through all of the clothes and decided what “fits” and what doesn’t, I have to decide what should be kept for potentional future daughters, and what should be sold or pitched. What should I save? What should I pitch? What if we don’t have any more girls? What if by the time we have girls this outfit is obsolete? What if I save all of this stuff, and mice and moths get into it? Where do I store all of the clothes I decide to save? There is no right answer.
Save me!
Moanna is in Maryland for a few weeks having a grand time with her Grandparents which means it’s a perfect time to sort through her clothes. It’s also been more than six months since I suffered a bout of bipolar emotions over a basket of laundry. Oh, and, it’s almost her birthday which means if I don’t go through her clothes, I’ll have to buy her a second dresser to hold them all and that’s just not in the budget (Momma needs a new camera). While Moanna is out gallivanting and taking gymnastics classes (she’s going to come home so grown up and doing vaults over the couch), I’m going to be popping Xanax and breathing into a paper bag.
Can you help me? How do you decide what still “fits” and what doesn’t? How do you decide what to keep and what to get rid of? How do you store the items you decide to keep? How do you sleep at night? If you don’t have any solutions, can you at least come talk to me and keep me distracted from the pain I’m going to be facing this evening?
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go lie down and cry myself to sleep.
Look at her go!
She’s so big! There is no way any of her clothes are going to fit by the time she gets home.
Hold me.
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get rid of the outfits that you hate, keep everything else, unless they are totally stained and yucky. Kid clothes don’t really go out of style, so no worries there. Don’t fret over it, just relax!
There are a few outfits that I can’t stand. When I come across them, I feel like I’m making progress because I KNOW what I want to do with them!
I’ve been doing this recently with my daughter’s clothes, too. Don’t ask me how to look at the beautiful Christmas dress, the first birthday dress, and honestly not feel qualms about them never being worn by Tati ever, ever, EVER again. It’s much, much worse than keeping your prom dress in your closet thinking, “I might squeeze into it again, and I’m sure I’ll need to wear it to a wedding or something, right?” Please pass the Xanax and the paper bag!
I am thrilled that you followed me on twitter (mybizzielizzie)! I came over here to check you out and found this amazing blog post and must report that I spent Mother’s Day – doing this same exact thing and am going to the Goodwill today with a boatload of clothing that no longer fits. I have the worst time going through Lizzie’s things and departing with them. OCD really kicks in! I sympathize with you! I know the pain and ordeal that the reality of our little one growing up! Hang tight! You’ll get through this!
Funny you should mention. I have Tali’s clothes strewn all over the living room floor as we speak –der, uh, type– for that very purpose. It’s nauseating, isn’t it!!
I keep things unless they’re really worn out, stained, or I don’t like them. We hope to have a lot more kids though, so I’m pretty sure they’ll get used again!
I don’t have a whole lot of space to keep clothes for my boys, ages 7 and almost 4. They each have one dresser, and their clothes have to fit in there. Sweatshirts/jackets can get hung up, but everything else has to go in the dresser.
I go through their stuff twice a year, the middle of spring (for their summer stuff) and the middle of fall (for their winter stuff). I have a few standards for their clothes: their pants must be long enough to cover their ankles, their shorts must not show their chonies, their shirts must be long enough to cover the tops of their pants when their arms are raised, and their shirts must not be too hard to pull over their head. Anything that doesn’t fit into these categories gets taken out of their dresser. Then I look at what I have taken out – does it have sentimental value? It goes in their box (where I have other sentimental stuff from their childhood, currently one box per child). Does it have crazy amount of stains? I toss it out. Is it still decent, but just doesn’t fit? Then it goes to another family – either someone I know or a donation center.
I do the same with my own clothes. I think it helps that we don’t have extra storage space for a lot of stuff – and that I can’t stand to have lots of clutter.
Good luck.
peace…
Clutter drives me crazy too, but for some reason it keeps finding it’s way back into my house. Every now and then I freak out because my house has too much stuff in it.
I have had to move often, so it helps to keep the clutter down. I do not advise this.
I often go through stuff and say “Do I need this? Have I used it in the last 3 months? Is it valuable to me?” and then decide what to do with whatever I’m talking about. It helps keep the crap out of the house.
peace…
I get rid of anything stained or worn. I go through the clothes at the end of every season and decide if there is any chance of them fitting into it by the time it gets cold/hot again. If not, it goes. I don’t save anything but the very best stuff for a possible future daughter because the odds are not in my favor. Not only do you have to worry about the chances of boy vs. girl, the chances of the seasons being right is difficult too. I’d basically be saving clothes for another winter baby girl, and that’s probably not going to happen. Just bless somebody else by passing things on. Then you don’t have to feel like you’re sending it to wherever clothes go to die. They can just go be loved by someone else!
I didn’t even think about the “what if the baby isn’t born in the right season” delima until I was talking about this at work during lunch!
Now that I’ve spent all weekend and all day obsessing about it, it’s time to suck it up and actually do it.
oh so cute, love the pic of her- gymnastics is awesome, uhm, i go by sizes mostly but some still fits that should be to small- no help really-
OMG you ARE turning into ME!!!! Do somthing quick, be brutal or your house will look like mine…….Love
i wouldn’t worry about the seasonal thing. i was (my first two were born in the summer and the last in the winter), but it didn’t really make any difference. i just added a hat, some socks, and a warmer blanket. b/c the baby wasn’t playing outside it didn’t really matter. and then when they get older layering is way easy. so there are some things you would use (like a turtle neck in the summer). but to me, i’d rather have an extra box in the closet than have to buy it all over again. so when i do buy clothes now i just keep that in mind. i usually buy t-shirts and sweaters rather than long sleeves (though, of course, i do have some). it’ll all work out, so don’t worry more than you need to:)
[...] Now that I think about it, I spent a lot of May home alone. Moanna was in Maryland having the time of her life (really it’s amazing that the child is willing to come home with how much fun Steve’s parents pack in during her visits), Steve was traveling around the country for work and I was at home like some lonely chump. I’m kidding, it was nice to have some personal time and to have an empty house to complete a few projects around the house. This project in particular was torturous . [...]