What to save

8-7-13

In general I try to keep the clutter to a minimum. The papers they send home from church go straight to the trash can, as do the math pages from Nadia's textbook after she completes them. I have very few "knick knacks" around the house aside from picture frames. In general it's usually easy for me to part with "stuff." I don't grow sentimentally attached to many things. This changed once I became a mom. The hardest thing for me to part with has been their clothing and some of their shoes. A few months ago a FB friend (she was a mom of two students in the school where I was principal) posted a picture of her first grandchild wearing something she had saved from when her daughter was a baby. Things like that encourage me that I'm not crazy to be saving some of their clothing. Maybe a grandchild will wear it some day!

7-31-14

I know other moms who have a really hard time parting with their children's toys. I had always been planning to save some of their books so I'd have books on hand for other children who visit our house and to be prepared for (hopefully) future grandchildren. I hadn't been planning to save the toys that they outgrew, but I've been changing my mind lately. First, I was thinking about how my kids, nieces, and nephews enjoy playing with our old toys at my parent's house, and recently Paul's mom gave Ian two Star Wars toys that were Paul's many years ago, and Ian LOVES them. It doesn't make sense to save EVERY toy or book. For one thing, I can always shop at yard sales in the future and build up my toy stash to prepare for a new grandchild, but I am planning to save more toys than I originally thought I would. This will make the purging decisions trickier though.

Yesterday morning the kids were playing with the big teddy bear. This used to be my teddy bear when I was a kid, which again proves the point that sometimes it's nice to hold onto things (even if they are big and bulky). It also hit me that it had been almost a year since I had taken a picture of Oliver with the bear, and so I snapped a couple of him with the bear even though it's one week before his birthday. Ian asked me to take a picture of him with the bear also, and he loved it when I showed him pictures of when he was an infant with the bear. Who knows maybe some day a grandchild of mine will have his or her picture taken with this bear? That's a pleasant thought!