So Much Crap

We’re having two of Olivia’s classmates over on Saturday to celebrate her birthday. Obviously, it’s a very small party but Tom and I talked about it and decided that Olivia would have more fun and might actually talk to her guests if there were just two of them.

In preparation for this ‘party’ I have been attempting to clean/organize the toyroom. It’s a disaster and just stepping inside the door of the room last week was depressing.

But I’ve made strides in cleaning it up. One can now walk into the room without stepping on anything. But there is still so much stuff in there. SO…MUCH…CRAP.

And yet here I am, making lists of more crap to buy my girls for Christmas. It’s kind of a sick, relentless cycle.

I looked around the room, which needed vacuumed once I managed to get all the crap off the floor and saw all the things that need to be purged.

We have toys that neither of the girls has played with in years. YEARS I tell you.

We have blocks that need to be passed on to some awesome kid who likes to build things with blocks. Olivia has always hated blocks. I think it stems from her first year of therapy (yes, she was only a year old but some things can take hold even that young and manifest years later…) when she was forced asked to use the blocks to make ‘trains’ and towers and other stuff she had no interest in doing.

Alyssa played with those blocks back when she was as much into horses as she is now into music. She used those blocks to make corrals and training circles. She made very elaborate arenas in which her horses performed. These days? Those blocks are taking up space and need to go.

The amount of tiny crap that has accumulated in our house is insane. We have left over Squinkies all over the place, we have tiny Barbie Leggos, I filled a bag with used (but not completely!) lip balm and Olivia was ecstatic to carry that bag around all day last Saturday, layering her flavors of lip balm.
Now that we have to children whose ages are in the double digits, it’s time to get rid of so much of the clutter. It needs to go not only because the entire house would be easier to keep clean but also because I have to wonder why we’re keeping that crap. For whom are we keeping it? Not the girls…so am I keeping it for me? For the sentimental value of simply having it in the house?

I don’t get nearly enough emotional benefits from that stuff to justify keeping useless crap that no one wants or needs or really even cares about. It’s time to send that stuff away and hope it finds a good home where other kids will love it and treasure it.

Let the purge begin.