Have I mentioned that the spare bed in Bella’s room has been swallowed by the piles of baby clothes which we’ve gratefully received from various of my in-laws? A while back I started in on the great sorting project and managed to get them into roughly four categories: 0-3 mo, 3-6 mo, 6-9 mo, and stuff to be passed on to someone else. I shoved the clothes into bags with postit notes to remind me what was in each bag (some of which have subsequently disappeared).
However, I still had two or three bags in each of the first three categories and needed to purge some of the excess as well as to sort out winter vs summer.
Today I lugged the three bags of 0-3 mo clothes into our bedroom (as well as one mixed bag that I’d missed in my previous triage that had some 6-9 mo clothes in it too). And thus a little less overwhelmed by the sheer volume of stuff to be sorted, I managed to bring some order out of the chaos.
I basically had four categories: girl summer, girl winter, boy/unisex summer, boy/unisex winter. Plus piles of hats and socks and a bag for stuff to donate. As I sorted, I tossed out anything I just didn’t like. I have enough clothes now that I can afford to be picky. Anything with a collar that looked like it wouldn’t lay down properly, anything in a color or pattern that I thought was ugly. All into the give away bag. (One person’s trash is another person’s treasure. Many of these clothes were very nice indeed, just not to my taste.) And then after I was done sorting, I made myself go through each pile and pull out a few more outfits to give away as well.
Next I’ve got to go through the bag of 0-3 stuff from Isabella. Some of that will be given away, some will be packed with the stuff that is for warmer weather and some will be allocated for Sophia’s use.
Now I’ve still got more clothes than I really need, but I’ll put the boy/unisex stuff away for a hopeful future date. That way if the next one is a boy we won’t have to go looking or begging. I’ll also put all the summery stuff aside. Sophia won’t be needing cute sundresses in March, April or May, I guarantee. By the time the weather is mild enough for such clothing, she’ll have long outgrown this stuff.
So now I’ve got a box full of the stuff I’ll need right after the baby is born. See how smart I was, the most important thing has already been accomplished and even if the rest languishes past the birth, I’ll still have a little grace period. But I won’t really let that happen. Now that I’ve begun I feel a new surge of hope. All I need is some more boxes or bins so I can really get stuff packed away. (I put the stuff I sorted today into old diaper boxes and some plastic bags, I really need a more long-term solution so I can store the stuff we won’t be using immediately in the basement.
There, now that I’ve blogged about it I really feel a sense of accomplishment. I have a plan. I will prevail.
