Sorting, sorting

Stuff grows! I'm quite certain as soon as I turn my back, the toys multiply. It seems like we get rid of all of Daelyn's little matchbox cars except two or three and the next time we clean out the toys, he has another 30 or 40 again. They propagate.

And it's not just the cars. It's all the junk. It seems like I just got rid of about 4 garbage bags full of stuff. Yet, as I clean out the Spare Bedroom (which isn't even supposed to have "toys" in it, just a large bin of dress-up clothes and games stacked neatly in the top of the closet) in preparation for my cousin from Canada, who is coming down for my nephew's wedding next weekend, staying with us for 3 weeks, I find that we have, easily, 4 more garbage bags full.

This morning, the kids and I loaded up the van with clothes that no longer fit them and dropped them off at Good Will. We had so many bags that they were even taking up the back seat and the floorboard between the two middle seats. Deanna held yet another bag. And, still, there are more toys than F.A.O. Schwartz!

My friend, Rachel, tells me not to get discouraged and that I really AM making progress. Kelly says that you have to constantly work to get rid of the junk and that I should plan to go through it every 3 months or so and thin down the new accumulation. I just can't seem to understand where it all comes from.

The children have outgrown toys, for the most part. There are a few things that they still enjoy. My in-laws gave Deanna a very nice set of wooden blocks when she was small. They all still like to make castles and Beverly Hills-style homes with the blocks. Daelyn pulls out his cars and parks them in the 17-car garage (and he hasn't even seen Leno). They love those blocks.

There might be one or two other things that they still use or would use if they could find. But the rest of the stuff just collects dust and gets in my way.

Deanna was sorting through a large Rubbermaid bin for me today. She was sorting into 3 piles: throw-aways, Good Will, and Keep. After she had worked for about an hour, I peeked into the living room, where I had stationed her. There was a very small pile to the far left, a huge pile in the middle, and another small pile to the right. Which was which? I couldn't believe my ears when she told me the huge middle pile was the "Keeps".

"Deanna!" I nearly screamed. "We're trying to get rid of stuff!"

"But, Mama, everytime I pull something out of the box and look at it, I remember some cute story about it. I think about when Dane or Daelyn got it and I just can't get rid of it."

That settles it. If I can just manage to get everything out of the spare bedroom, get it clean, set up the dresser, bedside table, lamp, and bed and make enough room in the closet for my cousin's clothes, I'll take over the sorting. The room shouldn't take me longer than 2 more hours to finish. Then I can invest the next 3 days in figuring out what to keep and where to keep it.

I guess I should be thankful that my children have things. I'm sure there are many children in the world that don't even have simple toys with which to play.

Maybe I should do some research, box ours up, and mail them out. Perhaps if Deanna knew those cute things with all the wonderful memories were being sent to a needy child for them to make memories, she'd be more inclined to sort a little more like me.