An embarrassment of riches

How is it possible that my children have so many clothes? I mean, really. When Laura Ingalls was a little girl on the banks of Plum Creek, she had two calico dresses and maybe a good winter dress. I'll bet her mother never spent an entire Saturday sorting clothes for her and her three sisters!

(Of course, I've never spent several days making my children's clothes, either, so I suppose I come out ahead of Caroline Ingalls any day of the week, really.)

My kids insist on growing, so naturally their clothes get too small, or seasonally inappropriate. Organized mothers may have a system for taking care of this, I do not. I don't let my children wander around in clothes that are too small (usually), but I just drag out the next size and wait until I can no longer fit anything in their drawers before digging out and putting away the small clothes.

It's been nearly a year since a major clothes rehaul. I finally got sick of the piles of "too-small" clothes in various overflowing containers stashed in the laundry room (and hallway, and baby's bedroom), and I needed to get out the newborn baby girl things for my friend. So I declared Saturday the "War on Clothes" day, and arranged for my husband to wrangle the kids so I could sort in peace.

It was an overwhelming process, as you can see from the picture above. There are clothes piled all over my bed, on the floor next to it, and in every container from laundry baskets to the bassinet. I sorted and I tossed and I pruned and I moaned. I suppose when you have four children, all in various stages of growth, and of both sexes, you should expect many many clothes. And it is foolish to give away, say, the newborn clothes, just because nobody is wearing them right now.

One funny thing I discovered was that I have about two big boxes of girl clothes, but about eight boxes of boy clothes. Some of that has to do with hand-me-downs: I've received many boy clothes hand-me-downs, but very few girl clothes. And I admit to dressing the infant/toddler Em in little boy clothes, or clothes that could be considered unisex. Still, it was a curious thing, to realize I easily have twice as many boy clothes in any given size as girl clothes.

The entire process took probably five hours, but lasted from about 9:30 am to 4:30 pm. And by the end, I was a pretty cranky mom. But it is a relief: everything is put (neatly) away, labeled for future use, and now I have a good idea what is needed for Christmas.

Now, hopefully I don't have to do that again until next fall...