Well, I have pretty much completed "phase 1" of the baby clothes purge. Well, without actually handing them off...yet. But they'll be ready to go over Easter weekend! It was a project I have been putting off for ages, both because I knew it would be an emotional thing and also because it would be a lot of work with little-to-no tangible return/benefit. Over the 11 years we've lived in this house, we've gone from less than a handful of bins of outgrown clothes in the crawlspace to no less than 20. They ranged from newborn to Jacob's most recently outgrown size, and it seemed daunting to even begin the process of starting to clear them out. However, I was so desperate to convince myself to start that over the last few months I had banned myself from buying more storage bins (including for the clothes the boys are currently outgrowing) because I knew I should be emptying the ones we had. But even that wasn't enough to bring myself to start pulling them out.
A couple weekends ago, I found myself in the crawl space putting away some things and realized that the bins of clothes were preventing me from storing something in the way-back of the crawl space. The bins are usually stacked nicely against one wall, usually about three high, but ended up scattered all over after our dishwasher leak back in October to let that area dry out and provide the plumber access to the pipes. I left them that way for months, knowing that he'd need to get in there for the installation of the new dishwasher, and just never really got back around to fixing them afterward. But by that weekend, the dishwasher was in and everything was dry, and in the midst of another quiet weekend at home I found myself without an actual excuse to not pull out bin number #1 and start the process. So I did.
The first bin was nearly as challenging as I predicted. Not only did it involve a lot of emotions, but the infamous yellow stains I battled when I pulled the clothes out pre-Carter were back. I threw them in to soak in Oxiclean, and it actually took two batches to fit all of the ones that needing soaking, which was probably around half of everything. Some ended up not coming out very well, but most were fine after their soak. I set the duds aside and washed the rest, figuring I'd give them another soak when I pulled out the next group.
The thing is, after doing this same sort of process years ago with Jacob's clothes after Carter was born, I should have known this would get a little chaotic. See, my system for outgrown clothes was always to leave a bin in the closet to pack away things as they got outgrown. In theory that should almost be better since you'd think any similarly sized stuff will get outgrown at the same time, regardless of what's on the label, but sometimes I was packing things away one at a time mid-season, or I'd realize at the beginning or end of a season that a whole size was done (or would be before that weather came back). Additionally, summer things stuck around longer because it was less obvious that sleeves or shorts were too short, so sizes ended up getting packed away at all different times. When Carter was a few months old, I pulled out clothes to try to organize the next size up, only to realize they were in multiple bins. As a result, I ended up with this unexpected mess randomly one weekend...
When I got through the first batch of clothes this time, I once again realized there were probably still a lot of things in the next bin up that were in those same tiny sizes. Believe it or not, I later found 3-6 month shorts in 18 month bins, just because that's when they were finally too short! So out came another bin, and then another. After another couple rounds of soaking, including the ones that didn't come clean the first time, and three more loads of laundry, I had a TON of clothes to sort through, basically filling our downstairs couch.
Amazingly, I only had to toss a handful of things along the way. A couple simply had too much wear, a couple ended up with some dye transfer (presumably because I used very hot water to soak them since Oxiclean works best with hot water), there were some with spent elastic, and in the end there were a couple (mostly white onesies) where the stains didn't come out. I actually saved most of the second-round soak ones, believe it or not! Fortunately, by the time I got to some of the earliest 12 month stuff, I got out of the yellow stain phase, which seemed to be mostly within spit-up age. That made the process much easier!
Initially I had wanted to try to take some to consignment, but the more I checked around, the more it seemed like there was little to no chance of getting any decent money for them. Not only are these older, but in many cases they've been worn by at least two children. While a lot are still in inexplicably good shape, I figured it was not worth the effort to haul them all there just to get a few bucks and have 99% of them rejected. Fortunately, my cousin is due with a boy this summer, so I checked to see if she was interested in looking through them. She was, so I happily started setting aside everything up through six months for her. In the midst of that, my friend Heather let me know that she was shaping
up to be short on pants for my godson Mason around the nine month
stage. Once I knew that, my goal was to get up through the 12 month clothes, so the first six months
could go to my cousin and the second six months Heather could look
through. I should be able to free up three bins just from that,
which is a good start. I figure any rejects can just be added to the pile o' stuff I'm setting aside for my mom's garage sale in the spring, and the leftovers from that can get donated. At this point I'm just going to be happy to give them another life and hopefully help out a few people in the process, while also cleaning out my house and finally reclaiming my bins! From the 12 month point on, I will probably just pull bins out as Mason grows, which should be a good, manageable pace.
As I was setting aside the stuff for Mason, I realized that there had to be more nine month clothes packed away later with the 12 and 18 month clothes. So, last night I pulled out what I thought were the next three bins, and started organizing them by size and season. I did uncover more nine and 12 month stuff, but then I realized there was still stuff missing, like a couple pairs of shorts that went with two cute 12 month golf shirts. Of course, I didn't realize it until I had already packed away the two 18 month bins plus another with 2Ts. So I went back in and discovered that there were even more bins with 18 month stuff scattered about out of order, so out came those, and sure enough I finally found the stuff I was missing. All in all I ended up going through seven bins in one night! For now I just reorganized them into sizes and labeled each bin, which left me with three 18 month bins, three 24 month/2T bins, and one with the earliest batch of 3Ts. When we get to each of those stages, I'll be set to pull them out, wash them, and pass them along. On the bright side, the extra bins I had to go through gave me just enough extra room to also sort and store a couple dozen pairs of shoes, which I had previously only piled up in another bin. I eventually assigned them to the proper bins after looking at photos of the kids and noting which shoes/sizes they were wearing at that age! It was quite a process, and I felt like I ran a 5K by the time I was done, between bending awkwardly all night to sort and carrying bins back and forth!
The good news about last night's late arriving batch was that we got a new washer and dryer on Wednesday, so I was able to get that batch done by midday today despite having to break it up into two loads! Our old washer and dryer were still working (almost 16 years!), but the washer had been acting funny (and at one point smelling burny) lately, and the dryer hadn't actually dried right in a few years (took twice as long), so we figured we'd get those replaced while the models we wanted were on sale. No sense risking it if the smell was an electrical issue, and better to get them before one dies and we can't do laundry for weeks! Anyway, it's amazing how quickly clothes can dry when things are working right! I still need to get that last batch organized, but I already bagged up two giant bags for my cousin, and I'll be finishing up Heather's this weekend so both will be ready to go when we go to Buffalo for Easter.
To be honest, while I did have a little nostalgia and sadness while going through the newborn stuff in particular, it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. I mean, the tiny newborn stuff that Carter wore every week for at least the first month or two of his life did make me a little emotional, but I didn't cry! In the end I did keep a few things. Part of it was nostalgia, and part of it was planning ahead in case I do this cool thing I saw on Pinterest for high school graduation that uses a clothesline full of clothes from different stages. I can see using a baby/toddler thing or two, then moving on to first jerseys, then some bigger kid stuff and finally finishing with the graduation gown. I had stashed our last unused newborn diaper (sooo tiny!) so I kept that, as well as the newborn outfit Carter came home in (it was so hot that poor Jacob just had a onesie--and I never took a picture!), my favorite moose outfit that Jacob wore a ton, a couple handmade knit items, their special hospital hats, and maybe one or two other random things. But not bad all things considered! For the rest I opted to just take some pictures to remember the ones I loved from those early days but forgot about.
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| The tiny Varsity jacket-style hoodie was so cute, and the fleece vest was so tiny and sweet! |
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| The sleepers with stuff on the butt were the best! |
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| So many memories of those sweet early days of snuggling on the couch! Love those little sneaker feet! |
I'll probably do a couple more with the bigger clothes but I think I have pictures of most of those between both kids, since they tended to wear favorites on days we had camera-worthy stuff going on. It's been quite a rush of memories, though, and it most cases it blows my mind it's been as long as it has been since either kid has worn those things. Time sure does fly.
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