Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Cleaning out the closet


I must confess, my daughter has too many clothes. Most of them weren’t bought by me,  as we have wonderful hand-me-downs, and we both love them! Hand-me-downs were my favorite when I was little and my daughter shares that, her excitement for them is immeasurable. She’s also a bit of a pack-rat, like me. Thus, Too many clothes equal Too Many Choices, which equals a meltdown before 8 a.m. every day.  That is going to change this year…or at least I'm doing everything I can to change it.

Skye started Kindergarten this year.  So, the week before school officially began, I made a date with her to go through her closet. It was almost a mini-shopping spree as we tried on all her clothes. I had a two-fold plan: 
  1. Weed out the clothes she had outgrown
  2. Commit to wearing what we were going to keep.
My daughter was a trooper and tried on everything I asked her to.  We celebrated when pants were too small, cheering because she had "grown SO much".  We made several piles…the keepers, the hand-me-down givebacks, and the giveaways.  She wanted a fourth pile that she could sell at our garage sale, but I convinced her we should give them away.  

It was tough to convince her to give away a few items that she LOVED, but in the end I told her we needed too so we could buy new school clothes.  That worked like a charm, and I was delighted.  It was a smooth process with absolutely no meltdowns. Only  a few tears came at the end as she laid her head on the giveaway pile and said good-bye to her old clothes.  But it didn't take her long to bounce up with a huge smile at the prospect of filling up the holes in her closet with lots of 6-T's! 

She's so big now…

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