Sorting Clothes

Lauren's second birthday. 

Clothes I had to sort through. 

Camille unhappy wearing one of the dresses I have yet to sort. 

Annie next to Lauren wearing a shirt Lauren is about to outgrow.

One of my "spring cleaning" chores is to sort through all the girls clothes. I started at the easiest job and did Sabrina and Ann Marie in one morning. The girls helped. Their sorting is pretty easy. The hardest part of it is trying to decide if it is really time to pass some of Annie's shirts on to Lauren. Honestly they almost wear the same size in shirts. 

So Annie has shirts that are size 4/5 that still fit and she loves. Some of these were purchased specifically for her in the last year for school clothes. And most of the 6/7 shirts are just too big for her yet.

The problem is that Lauren's size 3 shirts are all too small. So Annie has LOTS of shirts ranging in size from 4-6 and Lauren only has a few size 4 shirts. Anyway, that has been the hard part of sorting the older girls clothes. Today I tackled a MUCH more challenging feat - LAUREN'S CLOTHING.

This is a chore I have been putting off for a long time. She has grown out of almost all her size 3 clothes even though she won't be 4 till July. And she is picky about which clothes she will wear. She hates all jeans and won't wear them. I am hoping that will change in the next year or so because my other girls live in jeans. Most of the size 4 pants are jeans or jean like.

It took a long time and lots of whining from Lauren about trying on clothes and not liking any pants except her too small turtle leggings that she was wearing today, but we eventually made it through her dresser. We filled a trash bag up for charity. 

Then the really hard part hit. I found all the clothes I had hid away that she had already grown out of and I was saving for Camille. I went through all these 18-24 month and 2T clothes that Camille would have been wearing now. I could almost see her in them. 

Deep Breaths. Breathe through the contractions - heart contractions - soul contractions. Take a minute to let my heart feel the pain work through it. Tell myself to keep moving. Put the shirt in the charity pile. Oh this one is too special to give away. Put this one in the box to use as scraps to make quilts out of for the girls. Keep moving. It will be done soon enough. 

And then it was done and I had three large trash bags for charity and one large bin of special clothes that will make scraps for quilts for the girls. Someday I will have to hire someone to do that for me. Someday when they are older and I have enough special clothes for each of them to have a quilt. Clothes they wore in the photos with Camille. Clothes they just LOVED and would have worn everyday in their younger years. And clothes Camille wore. Each should have some scraps from Camille's clothes in their quilt. Someday.

Based on how hard today was, I can tell that Monday's chore of going through all the baby clothes is just going to be brutal. Keep moving. It has to be done and it will be done soon enough. Take the time to feel the pain of the contraction and know you are still alive - still loving - not past feeling. Then keep moving. And somehow it will be get done soon enough.