Working through my house and finding things to donate has been an ongoing challenge for me. Nearly every item I pick up generates questions and memories. What if I need this again? But ____ gave this to me and I love___! I’m trying to reframe those questions: Do I want to deal with this item for the rest of my life? Do I really think I’m going to use this when I haven’t taken it out of the box yet?
I have an additional challenge to my decluttering plans. An adorable, formidable challenge.
She’s cute. And so much smarter than me.
Emma has considerable talents, ones I shouldn’t write about as I fear the CIA will try to recruit her, and these skills make any kind of decluttering project even harder. For starters, she possesses a bionic sense of hearing. Until last week, the garage was the place where I could stash old toys awaiting donation. But last week she heard me whisper to Bob, my husband, that I’d hidden her birthday gift in the garage. She was on another floor of the house so maybe she bugged the room. And she went into the garage by herself for the first time in her not-quite-eight year old life. So now the garage is out.
She’s also adept at instinctively knowing when I’ve been filling a box of stuff to give away. It’s not a huge deal to lose the garage as a holding area for donations because it’s a mess anyway. So I have a few places in the house where I stash stuff until the date when the truck comes, but she’s really good at ferreting those out. Even when she was very small, she always outsmarted me. If she had the smallest clue I was getting ready to donate anything of hers, she usually found it. On more than one occasion she’d march past me with the slightest hint of defiance, clutching the rescued item close as if she expected me to grab it again. Bob would follow in her wake, always looking slightly sheepish over choosing my wrath over Emma’s.
When she was smaller I would donate toys she outgrew without thinking twice, though my decisions came back to bite me a couple times. I once gave away a doll she hadn’t touched in months. A few weeks later, my husband was home with her and called me at work to ask about the doll. We didn’t tell her I gave it away, but she knew it was gone and cried. I still feel terrible though I was able to replace it.But the memory of how upset I felt is enough to make me hesitate more often than I should.
Now that’s she’s older, it’s getting a little easier. I’ve been surprised by her willingness to give away some things. Last month she filled a box with Littlest Pet Shop and LaLaLoopsey toys, but I put the box in the attic in case she has a change of heart. If she hasn’t asked by summer I’ll give it away. She also went through her large collection of Easy Readers and chose a stack to donate.
She spelled ‘donate’ correctly all by herself. Proud mom moment.
Trying to rid the house of things she doesn’t play with brings up conflicting feelings for me: I know the things she feels are special may differ from the things I feel are special, so I want her to be involved, but it’s so much easier when she’s not.Regardless, it’s always easier to go about this clandestinely. This week we may finally leave the cold temps and ice behind us and have an uninterrupted week of school. I feel like I’ve been lagging behind and need to get the momentum going again.
Kids toys are so tricky, I always run it by the kids and as they get older it gets easier. I think this is one area where patience is key! Jenni
I involve our daughter in each of the items I want to donate. There are two reasons for choosing to do it that. One is so I don’t need to try to guess how important a toy is to my daughter, because she gives the go ahead. And the second reason is I am also teaching her how not to hoard items, while at the same time blessing others. By the way, keep up the good work! You’re doing great!!!
V and I both have issues with purging…I finally told V that I wasn’t buying him any more books until he went through his easy readers. I suggested he read each one and then put them into a pile to keep, maybe or donate. We ended up donating over 100 books. Now I am working on getting rid of the play kitchen…but he still plays with it..and I got all creative and repurposed our old tv stand into a parking garage…and I feel I just enable our issues. 😉
Like !!
No matter what age, we need to de-clutter….just need to keep on keeping on.
The impetus for us is that we hope to move within a year to our last and easy access home . Moving whilst we are able and “young enough” to enjoy the adventure but not the move, and before we HAVE to say goodbye to a two story home!
Alexa-asimplelife visiting from Sydney, Australia
I work with my children to choose which items to donate, and have since they could discuss things with me. We talk about donating them to the store, for “children who don’t have as many (x) as you.” However, (and this still breaks my heart) my daughter gave away one of her dolls, and later I found a letter she had written to her doll, saying she hoped the doll found a good family who played with her. I still look for that doll in thrift stores. I don’t know if I would buy her back, but I think about it! (It’s been a couple years.) It’s the only things in 12 years that truly has been missed, though!
Oh yeah, its uncanny the skills kids possess. I hate having things taken from me without my approval, so I try to balance respecting that for my daughter and trashing the trash. (i.e. the fast food toys we used to get – they go. Sorry, kiddo. There have only been a couple we have kept for more than a week or so, and that only happened because she made a polite, convincing argument to keep it and I had seen her playing with it. Otherwise, its out w/ the yard sale stuff or given to teachers for the treasure boxes in their classrooms.)
I have been surprised on several occasions by what she’s willing to let go of when I’ve told my daughter it was time to purge the items she no longer played with. I think she’s so willing to take that job seriously because I always give her a heads up and she gets to do it, plus sometimes I will keep something she’s thought about giving up downstairs until she is sure she wants to let go of it. That way its like a trial period, lol. Also, I’ve told her its ok to keep certain things for sentimental value – within reason. I have a box on her closet shelf for that purpose. That way there is a visual limit and she then truly treasures what makes the cut. I suspect she finds it easier to let go when she knows I have her back:-]
I have been enjoying your take on this journey, wish you the best of luck, and look forward to reading even more of your posts!
I have been donating my children’s toys as they grow out of them for years. It usually is a success. Except for that one time my youngest, then 4 years old, decided to donate her stuffed dinosaur… and never mentioned it again… until a FULL YEAR LATER! All of a sudden she remembered it, missed it, and cried profusely about it. What could I do? It was long gone to goodwill. We both learned something that day.