My mom called to tell me about a patient she became friendly with-- a sweet little two year old with leukemia. She got to talking to the little girl's mom, and found out that the woman is actually in the process of adopting the patient and her four sisters, all under the age of 5. This kind woman, who refuses to separate the sisters, clearly has a need for a lot of little girls' clothes, so my mom asked the woman if she could give me her name, thinking I might have some clothes I could send the girls.
When Josh was little, my friend Leah gave Jason and I so many things for him--a swing, exersaucer, jumperoo and lots of clothes. Those things were so helpful to us, so I vowed that I would always pass on my baby items to someone who could use them. With that in mind, I got out the tubs of clothing I've been saving for Lorelei. Then I went through the clothes I've bought for Caitlyn. Then I went through both of their dressers.
I am ashamed by what I found.
My girls have more clothes than either of them could wear in a month. And I don't mean all of their clothes together-- I mean they both have enough summer clothes in their current size that we could easily go 4 to 5 weeks without washing. I mean that they have an equal number of winter clothes. Obscene.
Now, to be fair, Caitlyn wears most of her clothes for at least a year, so some of her clothes for this winter are the same ones she could wear at the end of winter last year. And many of Lorelei's things are clothes I saved from Caitlyn. And, I never spend a lot of money on their clothes. I shop at the end of the season for the next year, and I can often get jeans for as little as a $1 a pair for cute, embroidered Arizona jeans. Or $5 for a Gymboree dress-- you get the picture. But those are just no excuse for the copious amounts of clothes.
So, tonight I went through everything, and Caitlyn helped me pick out more than 100 items we can send to these 5 little girlies in Texas. It was actually quite fun to work on it with Caitlyn, and I was proud of her for wanting to share her things with others. I was really proud when she picked out some of her favorite things (like a Disney princess shirt that still fits) to share.
We went through items that still had tags on them, and we are sending a lot of those, too. No little girl needs 8 pairs of jeans, even if they do cover two sizes.
But regardless of how good it felt to share with someone else, the simple fact is that I am ashamed that we had so much to share. No matter how little we actually spent on the clothes, it is just ridiculous to have so many. This is something I am going to remember when it comes time to shop for next year. We may still buy just as much, but all of it will not go into my girls' closet.
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