EIGHT hours later we emerged with a giant garbage bag full of trash - kindergarten papers, church papers, artwork, broken toys, mucked up play makeup, pieces of jewelry, rocks and sea shells.
We also had a giant bag of clothes - clothes she's grown out of, pants that show her panties when she sits, and the ones she thinks are too ugly to wear.
She can now close her drawers and she'll be able to find her stuff for about a week.
In 6 months we'll go excavate again.
I wish the church would stop handing out loads of paper every time we walk through the door. She never looks at it again, but feels emotionally attached to it.
It wouldn't have taken so long if she hadn't gone through every single paper to remark, This was some of my best coloring." She was emotionally attached to every piece of scrap paper she ever scribbled on.
We can't keep everything Ainsley. If we want new things, we have to make room for them by getting rid of old things. (Said the mother who keeps more than one ugly sweater, lots of old notebooks, parts to who knows what, and pants that don't fit "just in case.)"
6 comments:
good lord that picture is amazing. you should post a before/after. :)
i think a mandatory periodic excavation is an excellent idea.
Rebecca
Good suggestion - I posted an "after picture."
here's what I use to do because it can get to be volumes of paper. I thinned the pile when my dd was at school. I kept some favorites from each year and she never realized they were gone. EVIL I know.
I've tried it - believe me. But, she busts me and feels so betrayed and hurt that I would throw her very important work away.
I let her fill two binders up with her favorite work. Made her toss the rest herself.
Excavate.. what a perfect term.
I am jealous, just thinking of your heaping garbage bags 'o clutter... I have a "Throw away one a day" vow, but it barely makes a dent...
Well, the bags are still here. I'm a little hesitant to actually get rid of them. They my sit in the garage for a while until I find a deserving family who needs them. Well, except for the paper - I threw that away.
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