Our family makeup is interesting. We had 2 girls, then 2 boys, then 3 girls, and finally a boy. What is curious is that because of genetic makeup, the 2 older girls share clothes, the 2 older boys share clothes, and then the next 2 girls share clothes. It is a LITTLE bit like having 3 sets of twins in terms of clothing size.
Angela, our 6th child, is 5 but tall for her age. She's outgrown 5T almost completely and wears 6T or 7T clothes along with Miriam (who is 7 but short for her age.)
Sarah and Daniel will not share clothing, so there is no need for me to save a ton of 3T, 4T, and 5T clothing for them to grow into.
Yesterday my back was hurting (long story, more about that later) so I kept our older 3 kids busy marching up and down the stairs with tubs. (We store our spare clothing in a basement room, but I didn't want to hang out on the cold concrete downstairs.) I went through 9 tubs, 3 for each size, and reduced each size by about 1/3rd.
The result?
This is Daniel's nighttime pack and play. I had the children throw the donated clothes into the pack and play just to get them out of the way. Later in the afternoon, the older 3 kids counted them all and put them in bags for donation.
The final tally was 190 garments. Yes, 190! I wasn't being particularly heroic. I was just getting rid of clothing I knew we didn't need. And no, they weren't nasty or stained as I threw out those few items that were truly unpleasant.
Obviously, we have too many clothes. We have been blessed to have many people donate clothing to us, and I am very grateful. As I said, we needed enough for twins (essentially) so I needed a lot when the pairs reached a certain size.
It feels good to get the extra clothing out of our basement as it makes it easier to store what we do need. I am glad I made the time to sort those clothes yesterday.
Last night, I packed the big boys into the car and we drove off towards the crisis pregnancy center to drop off thte items. We made it about a mile. As I reached the end of our road, I applied the brakes. Black ice! I slid into the next road. By God's grace, no one else was driving around so I did NOT crash into anyone, and I stopped before I went into the ditch on the other side. However, I could tell traveling conditions weren't safe, so I turned around and came back home.
So, I hope to take the clothes on Monday.
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