There are things in my life that I can not share with you in this blog. It's frustrating, but true. There are small portions of my life that it just wouldn't be appropriate or healthy to vent about in such a public forum. They would offend and hurt feelings and I don't want to do that. I try to be as honest as possible here in this place, but I also try to remember that I don't want to write something I wouldn't want read back to me in anger. Hmmm. Tough one today. So even though I have a lot of raging thoughts running around in my head about one thing in particular today, I will save that vent for my sweet sister and possibly an additional friend if the situation proves to be 2-vent worthy.
Instead, I will expound to you about (and possibly bore you with) one of the more tedious and certainly not fun aspects of motherhood that is looming once again on my to-do list: The Clothes Cycle. When you are pregnant and opening endless gifts of adorable clothes at your baby shower, you don't really know what you are in for. Kids grow fast and babies grow faster. Seasons change. The clothes in the drawers must be cycled in and out and sorted through. Endlessly. Now that my kids are out of babyhood, I don't have to do this every couple of weeks anymore, but I am still faced with major cycles twice a year and minor cycles a couple more times a year. It ain't fun, that's for sure, but if you don't do it life becomes disorganized chaos.
I remember when Tyler was tiny (okay that didn't last long since he was 20 lbs by 4 months), I wasn't very excited about the hand-me-downs that came my way. I kept them, but used very few of the baby ones. I don't think I was being snobby about it, but I had drawers full of beautiful new clothes that dear friends had gifted me with. As the years went on and Tyler grew faster than I could believe, I became a lot more thankful for the hand-me-downs that came my way. At that time it was just a few things here or there, but enough to supplement his wardrobe so I didn't have to buy every single thing for him. And as the years passed by and seasons changed, I performed the clothes cycle over and over again. And even though for a long time I was certain that Tyler would be my only child, I saved all his clothes. I'm not sure why I did it, maybe for sentamentalism, maybe for the outside chance he wasn't the only child, maybe for future nephews or friends kids, but I kept everything.
Man am I glad I kept everything! Two boys later and I wonder what I would have done without all those clothes! Since Scooter is 6 years younger than Tyler and he was Scott's first child, the first grandson on his side, we were gifted again with a lot of beautiful clothes for our baby. But since it was my second child and another boy, it wasn't quite as large of an outpouring of gifts. It was way more than sufficient. I pulled out my long unused baby clothes and re-used so much I couldn't believe it. And I started the clothes cycle all over again. Again, I kept everything and when I discovered I was pregnant again with another boy that would only be 19 months younger than Scooter I was ecstatic I hadn't purged yet.
Poor Riley. There isn't much in his wardrobe that's brand new. We have always bought him a few items each season so there is something new in his drawers and so that he isn't completely out of style (not that this is too much of a problem with boy clothes) or for pictures, but for the most part his entire wardrobe was worn by someone else or two someone elses. Not that he would ever notice. The thing about boys is that they just don't care. They have their favorites and items they love and when they find those pieces they will try and wear them 3 or 4 times a week, never touching the shirt that YOU love and spent decent money on and would love to see them in.
In addition to Tyler's old clothes, I also have a friend in west Texas with a son a couple years younger than Tyler that passes her endless supply of boys clothes my way. They have 2 younger daughters and are done having kids. Since her mother is always on the look out for great deals on great clothes, the sheer volume of clothes that find their way to my house is awesome. Even with 3 boys I could never use it all. I love getting those boxes and bags. I sort through sizes and seasons and determine what will work best for us and what won't. I take the stuff I need and then pass on a bunch to other moms of boys I know. Anything left over finds its way to Good Will or the Salvation Army or the next clothes drive that is coming to pick up from my door step.
The end result of all this saving and accepting is that I don't have to have a huge clothing budget for my munchkins. I didn't buy one stitch of clothing for Scooter and Riley this spring and summer. Not one. I had so much stuff it wouldn't all fit in the drawers. I didn't have to buy for Tyler either since shorts and tshirts will usually last through 2 summer seasons unlike jeans and pants. I was tempted all summer by cute new styles and colors. The brilliance of NEW was calling to me at every store, but I kept on walking. I have learned the hard way that as soon as I put a $25 shirt on one of my boys, it will have an unremovable stain on it, but the hand me down or $2 garage sale shirt that they end up loving will last forever. My pocket book is about to get a small hit though, now that it's almost November.
One of the great things about living in Texas (also one of the more frustrating, but that's another story) is that it doesn't get really cold here until well into fall and on the way to winter. I leave a few pairs of jeans and long sleeve shirts in the kids drawers during the summer so that the occasional crisp day is covered, but for the most part the boys are wearing shorts through October and sometimes into early November. Since Tyler tends to have his growth spurts toward the end of summer and into early fall, I can avoid buying new jeans more than I need to. This weekend I will have to drag him along to shop for pants and make sure we are getting the right size for his rapidly elongating legs and super thin hips. I'll make an investment for a couple of pairs of new, very nice jeans and then one day next week I will hit the resale shops armed with the proper size in mind to fill out his winter wardrobe.
What I have learned over the years is that it isn't just the hand-me-downs that are worth the investment of time and storage, resale shops are a treasure trove of wonderfulness. It amazes me how ragged the bottoms of Tyler's jeans get and how quickly holes appear in the knees. What is it about boys? Anyway, I would rather spend my time rooting through the gently used clothing at Once Upon a Child for the perfect finds than spend hundreds of dollars replacing pricey brand new jeans with more pricey brand new jeans. And at the end of the day - they are jeans! Who cares? They don't need a fancy label (although that's ironically what I usually find in the pre-owned aisles), they just need to be denim and cover his body.
The other thing I have learned is how to organize this madness. There is a part of me that longs for the day that once my youngest is through a size, I can officially cycle OUT. Meaning, I can pass my stuff off to someone else like me, in this crazy season, who needs the clothes when I don't anymore. But until that day comes, it turns out that huge rubber storage tubs and vacuum packed storage bags relabeled 15 times doesn't quite cut it for the amount of clothes I have going on here. Trying to find what you need is insane when there isn't a system. This spring I actually found a huge supply of Tyler's clothes that I had missed before. So I had bought Scooter a bunch of shorts and shirts for a size I didn't know that I had plenty of, which he had since grown out of. Riley is wearing them now, but Scooter missed the boat. I wonder what I could have used that money for instead last year!
This spring, I made a huge mess of my house for a couple of weeks so that I could make less of a mess in the garage and my head. I sorted through every single piece of clothing we own (there were literally mountains of clothes in sorted piles throughout my living areas) and implemented a better system. Armed with Bankers Boxes, Index Cards and a Sharpie marker I made my life easier one pile at a time (I found this system in 'Coach Mom' by Brenna Stull, but she had gotten the idea from another organization savvy mother). Instead of having to force my husband to look through the attic and 3 different sections of garage for whatever bag or container might have the size of stuff I need and then getting into the clothes to find that they were mislabeled or mixed with other sizes, we now have a method to our madness. Every single item of clothing is sorted into boxes by size and season. Every box is labeled with a number. Every numbered box corresponds to a numbered and color coded index card with a description of what is in the box and how full the box is for easy reference.
That sounds overly detailed and crazy doesn't it? But my garage is now neatly organized. The back wall houses nice, neat stacks of numbered white boxes 6 high and 2 deep, 80 plus boxes in numbered order. I have an index card file box with blue cards for boys clothes, pink cards for mine, green for baby stuff and yellow for Scott. Each person in my family has a box of stuff that is just theirs and will never be worn by anyone else, the special stuff like worn-home-from-the-hospital outfits, sports jerseys, and something they looked extra cute in and it's just 'theirs'. I even have boxes with some seasonal decorations and supplies - they are purple cards. I gotta tell you it's nice to know exactly where the Easter baskets and Halloween pumpkins are without having them strewn haphazardly on the shelves out there. This weekend I will only have to ask my husband for box #52 and when he brings it in we will have everything we need to go trick-or-treating and to carve our pumpkins.
It's still a job. I need to go through the kids drawers and pull all but a few warm weather items and make sure they are stacked by size. I have to decide what size they will be wearing this winter and then figure out which boxes I will need. Once I have everything pulled and repacked I have to update my index cards and send Scott back out to put things in order. When another bag of hand-me-downs comes my way (which will be sometime this week because a mother of a friend of Tyler's that's as tall as Scott offered me some of her son's gently used items) I will have to sort through and figure out if I have room in already organized boxes or if I need to make new ones.
It's still work and I don't really feel like starting the project. However, since I only kept a couple of pairs of jeans out for myself and it was in the 40's this morning - it's time. And I know that I will be happy to have the system in place when I start working on the madness. I know that when my friends and Tara return the maternity clothes I lent them I will be glad to know exactly where to put them. And if we are lucky enough to have another baby boy, I will be so happy that I already have so many clothes for him to wear, although if we had a girl at this point I would have to start begging my friends to send their girl clothes my way. And when we are officially done having babies (hopefully just one more), I will be glad that everything is already sorted by size and season for either handing down to friends or having a really big garage sale.
It's amazing to me sometimes how much work motherhood really is. When you get into this game, you think alot about some of the stuff, but others don't really hit you until they are happening. And a lot of it, you figure out along the way. I am always looking for a better and brighter way, sometimes a simpler way. Oh man - I would love to keep writing to you today, find something else to chat with you about, but the Clothing Cycle is waiting . . .
Have a good day friend! God Bless you and keep you!
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