Sorry I’ve been so absent lately. My website is still down way too often and so for those not on Facebook you may think I have abandoned ship, but this is not so! Please don’t give up on me. As for today’s link up, this isn’t an embarrassing moment, but it is a funny exaggeration so that’s why I am posting it for today’s Look Back and Laugh. Maybe some of you will relate.

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Now that we finally have some spring weather it’s time to pack up the sweaters and bring out the shorts. This is always a big task to tackle, but this is the first time I have done it with 4 children. And let me tell you, it is a NIGHTMARE!

I have been working on it for daaaaays. Maybe there are people that have containers and storage for all this, or their closets are big enough  to fit winter and summer clothing year round. None of this is the case for me. We have hobbit closets and live by the philosophy if it wasn’t worn by 8 different children then someone didn’t get their money’s worth. So clothing rotation in our home is an art form and one that I have yet to master.

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One problem is how to group things. There is the obvious grouping by size and season, but we have up to size 10 and both genders. If I had a bin for each size, gender, and season we would have forty bins of clothes. So I try to scale down as I go through everything.

Let’s start with the first son. I have to decide if it’s something that will fit him next year. If yes, I put it in the size “8ish” winter pile. If not then it is either a future dust rag, donation, or I hang onto it for when the next son is in size 6 or 7.

See that’s the other problem, just because something says it’s one size it doesn’t always fit that way so you may have everything from a 6 to a 9 in a closet at one time. Then you have things that you want to pass on or give back to a specific family. That’s another pile. There are always a couple items that look like they need to go through the wash once more before being packed up, so you’ve gotta throw those in a pile. Or maybe it’s something you feel is valuable enough to sell. Start a pile for that too. Do this four times over and you have 23 piles and house that looks like an episode of Hoarders Buried Alive.

winter-clothes-in-storage

I do realize in hindsight that there is no 5T or 6T, but after going through so many toddler clothes I got carried away with the T.

Then heaven forbid your child realize you are getting rid of one of their prized possessions. Oh it’s all over! Go ahead and bring in a professional counselor for this part. Yesterday SJ wanted to know what the letters on the trash bag spelled and I told her it said “Donation” and she gave me a quizzical look. Donation? What is donation? She asked. I dodged the question. We’ll talk about it later.

Then Z saw a pair of jogging pants in the trash pile and he freaked out on me. I told him they are a size six and too small, but he began to protest.

Z: That’s just a label mom. They still fit me.

Mom: They have holes in them. They are going in the trash”

Dad: You could cut them and make them into shorts.

Mom: He has plenty of shorts! You stay out of this.

This conversation went on for a long time and I kid you not he wore them to school today. Sigh.

I’d be lying if I didn’t admit I am just as much a culprit when it comes to clothing attachment issues. I see a vest that Z wore for Easter of ’09 and I react like my 13 year old dog is being euthanized. 

It’s all just too much. I mean, I understand why we have clothes I guess, but sometimes I wonder if they are overrated. Maybe unisex rompers will become a thing. Until then I better get back to sorting or it will be winter again before I finish.