Old Stuff, New Year

In a perfect world, we'd have spent our Christmas break having precious moments as a family--playing with the Christmas toys, having long conversations about Christmas memories, and snuggling together on the couch watching movies.  In reality, there was a lot of sleeping, a lot of electronics, and a lot of me trying to check off a to do list.  Not ideal, but in many cases I feel like my sanity depended on it.

We did have some fun.  Yesterday we went out to see "Ralph Wrecks the Internet", which was really fun.  We had a somewhat entertaining trip through Target and its demolished Christmas clearance section (but hey, I got a string of red beaded garland to extend a single strand I use on our fake ficus tree, for just 20 cents!).  We ordered our dinners of choice for New Year's Eve--Chinese for Craig and me, Outback steak for Jacob, and Wendy's for Carter (honestly, that's what he wanted!).  All of us stayed up until midnight, and then slept in this morning.  And thanks to earplugs, I even slept through 60mph winds last night!  We've had a very lazy day, which wasn't a bad way to finish things off.  I don't think anyone even opened the front door.

But the vast majority of our time at home was not exactly ideal.  We had our fair share of the kids driving each other nuts, but that's just par for the course around here.  The bigger problem was that I had a list of stuff I needed to get done, and between Craig working and being overly tired as a result of work, I was flying solo a bit more than anticipated.  He had to work Wednesday when we got back from Buffalo and then took the kids into work with him when I had to work on Thursday.  Thank goodness for a Wii in the office!  Jacob and I had his annual brain study appointment on Friday morning (and Carter came along), and then it was back home for the rest of the day, most of which was alone with the boys because Craig had to work in the evening, given that it was the night before the Knighthawks season opener.  Saturday he was at work all day, and he napped literally almost all day Sunday because he'd worked so late on Saturday and really for most of the week prior.  So, while I was trying to get things done, for the most part the kids were defaulting to electronics (NBA 2K19 for Jacob and anything on the phone or tablet for Carter).

I know that conventional mom wisdom is that I should let the household tasks go and just focus on the kids, but that's easier said than done.  For one, most of our living room is taken over by a massive "stadium" setup that Jacob has been creating with Legos, Playmobil, magnetic tiles, Lincoln Logs, and almost anything else we had floating around.  Add in the new Lego police station and some of Carter's stuff, plus other Christmas remnants, and there isn't a lot of space to get down and play.  Could we?  Yes, but the lack of space just doesn't inspire creativity.  It's almost like I mentally can't bring myself to add to the mess.

The other problem is that we just have too much stuff in this house.  I've mentioned before that "stuff" tends to give me anxiety, and it had just gotten to the point where it needed tending to.  This had to be the time to do it.  I just can't bring myself to dive into that stuff in the evenings, or really even on weekends.  It's just too difficult, and tends to lead to random rabbit holes that tend to take even more time. Having multiple days off at home is really the best way to do it.

I think one of our challenges is that I don't want to waste things.  Where other parents might just do a sweep and give stuff away or throw it out, I want to honor the thought that went into the gift or honor the urge the kid had to ask for that gift.  And when you have two boys who are loved by a lot of people, it all tends to add up.  Carter is a very imaginative player, too, so things that you wouldn't think would still be useful or worth keeping somehow get worked into his crazy little play scenarios.  I also think I did a decent job of storing stuff over the years, so it was either "out of sight, out of mind" or it had space to build up for so long and finally just hit capacity.  We also hadn't done a purge/organization in a while, so there was stuff everywhere--this piece here, another piece there.  My kids have a tendency to use something, lose interest, and leave it in some random spot in the house.  When I finally get sick of it and do a sweep, there tend to be a few "dumping grounds" where they go for lack of a specific home.  There were a couple bins in the living room, a couple bins in Jacob's room, and a large cabinet in Carter's room.  There were parts and pieces everywhere, and it was finally time to get things sorted out.

I first did a sweep through the bigger toys to see if there were any that had been outgrown.  There wasn't much that Carter was willing to give up...yet.  I figured if we really needed space I'd push it later.  I also knew that no matter what we did during this round, we'd reorganize again once the Christmas stuff gets put away, so there were still opportunities to switch storage spots and make things more accessible.  Anyway, the next step was sorting through the dress-up stuff.  I knew Carter wouldn't want the superhero stuff, and would have mostly outgrown it anyway.  So a lot of that went.  I also had more blankets and crib sheets to clear out of a basket in his closet.  We narrowed the dress-up stuff to part of one drawer under his bed.  Then we went through his books.  We cleared out some baby books as well as some where his interests have changed.  Those will go through my Aunt Lynne who runs a free book program at my church's food pantry program.  Then I went through his drawer of Imaginext and superhero figures and sorted everything--all Imaginext in one bin, random superheroes in another, and everything else in another pile.  That led into the big sort--the cabinet in his bookshelf.  It was full of random toys and mostly giant bins full of Happy Meal toys and prize box trinkets.  It took forever (literally hours), but we finally got through all of it.  I also pulled more stuff out of bins in the living room, and in the end there was a full Wegmans bag of little stuff he was ready to part with.  We still kept quite a bit, which was fair, and since we had cleared out a drawer of his bed, that became the new home for all of that stuff, so it would be easier for him to see all of it there than if it were in a bin.  Some other toys (dinosaur figures and some trucks) went in the third drawer, and the bottom of the bookshelf became home for a bin of Imaginext figures and all of the random vehicles to go with them.  It felt good to match up pieces and clear out so much stuff.

Next up were the bins in Jacob's room.  I cleared out a couple Halloween costumes he'd kept around, and then went through his random bin of Happy Meal toys.  I had to upsize the bag of stuff we're ditching.  Then I made Jacob and Craig go through three more bins of mostly Playmobil and random sports figures, and those got sorted into sports and "other" figures.  We added a bunch more to the big bag, and after a little polling on Facebook, I asked Carter's teacher if she would like to go through it for a prize box or anything like that.  When she said yes, I had to go through everything again to pull out stuff that wasn't matched up or no longer made noise or didn't seem appropriate.  I still ended up with about 10-15 pounds of stuff to give up!  I threw other stuff in a bin for when I'm ready to donate, and tried to find homes for any leftovers.

Anyway...we still have a lot of work to do, but it was a good start.  It was just enough to make things tolerable again and free up a little space.  Everything just feels a little less disorganized and jam packed.  We'll go through things again after the Christmas décor comes down, and I still have a couple trouble spots to hit, like our overflowing craft corner that probably has a dozen coloring books we could donate to Carter's class.  We'll get there.

I also went through all of Carter's school papers and crafts, and cleared out most of the newspapers I'd let pile up.  We're slowly but surely working through Christmas snacks and a fridge full of random leftovers.  My dining room table is only a little messy, and all of my bills got paid.  Many of the Christmas gifts have been dispatched to their homes, and next weekend I'll get going on putting Christmas away.  It seems like I just put it up, but I'm oddly ready to take it down.  I like my downgrade to snowmen and silver and white and blue.  It feels fresher and cleaner after a month of excess.

The thing is, I don't have anything against stuff.  In fact, I like stuff and tend to keep a lot of it.  What I don't like is when stuff just sits around and doesn't get used.  That's why I want a second Christmas tree--so ornaments don't go unused.  That's why I don't mind keeping toys if they're in a spot to be seen and used.  And if stuff isn't going to get used, I'd prefer to have it put away neatly where it's not in the way, which is why I keep memory bins for myself and the kids.  Sometimes it's clearing out, sometimes it's new habits, but it's always good to be reminded of what we have and be realistic about what we need and what we don't.  My goal is to take days in the summer to go through all of the kids stuff, and hopefully other stuff too, and either take it to the consignment store or donate it.  It's time.

So, a new year has started, and while I still feel a little weighed down by old stuff, hopefully this is the year I start getting it under control.  Maybe it's just one small spot for improvement, but it's something.  One step at a time...