To Keep or Not to Keep, That is the Question

I've been in a spring cleaning kind of mode lately and have been going through each room in the house secretly getting rid of things. Secretly because the girls would have a coniption-fit if they saw their precious McDonald's toys being carted away. I've been putting everything in a pile in the basement and figure I'll have a garage sale in the spring. If they haven't missed it by then it's fair game. That's my usual mode of cleaning out the toyroom. Put stuff away for a few months before permanently getting rid of it just to make sure there aren't any lost treasures I'm unaware of.

Case in point, a pair of green toy binoculars were found in the pile a couple days ago and have been played with non-stop...I might be able to let those stay. I wish I had room to do a rotating toy system so everything stays relatively new but really, I hate rotating stuff. Winter/summer clothes rotation drive me crazy along with sizing up in shoes and clothes. I'm grateful we have a huge store downstairs but I hate going through all those bins.

Speaking of those bins...that was my room for this week. The storage room. This time it's me who needs a bit of time before purging. I looked at the 5 bins that contains baby stuff that Lucienne has outgrown. To keep or not to keep, that is the question. Is she our last? I don't want another right now. I know Rene is done. I think I'm at the stage of wanting to hold a newborn but will be more than happy to give her back to her Mom. I'll become that sister in the ward who steals baby snuggles from other people's babies.

As a test, I put all her outgrown clothes into garbage bags marked with our consignment number, ready to haul to our local consignment store (which, by the way, I LOVE!!! Went in the other day to find we have over $100 on our account). It wasn't hard to do at all. In fact, my heart skipped a beat just seeing those empty bins ready to be organized for some other use. No tears, no sad sighs. Hopefully the purging side of my brain wasn't outfighting my procreation side but I'll take it as a sign.

Our family feels full.  We have four beautiful, healthy girls. And I'm ready to get out of the house without taking 30 minutes gathering the diaper bag, snacks, making sure everyone has shoes on and their hair is brushed, faces are clean, clothes are presentable (although this is up for debate) only to spend another 10 minutes strapping kids into carseats, setting up movies and finding thrown toys.

I'll cherish it while I'm in it but I'm excited to see what the future will bring.