A Little Cleaning

A couple days ago I decided it's time to do a little reorganizing, de-cluttering, and deep cleaning. I've been meaning to get around to it for months, and Saturday seemed like the perfect day to start. My son's closet was overflowing, boxes of clothes and toys were crammed in there and I could hardly close the doors. By the time I dragged all the clothing out, I found 6 boxes! Boy, did I ever feel like I belonged on "Hoarders"!

After Kenadi was born, I started saving Laila's clothes that still had good use left to them. I've always been frugal, and I didn't see any sense in tossing perfectly good clothing, and this is what I found when I pulled all the clothes boxes from the closet! I was more than pleasantly surprised to find enough clothes to completely replace everything in Kenadi's wardrobe with the next size up! I also found pants I bought for Laila last fall still with the tags on them, I love clearance sales! She's fully stocked for school this fall and winter, and I didn't even have to go shopping! Even though they are 3 years apart in age, in size, Laila and Kenadi are now only 1-2 sizes different. Kenadi seems to be on the bigger side, now wearing mostly 4T, and Laila is a tad smaller, still able to fit in some 5Ts and just now starting to fit in some extra smalls.

Just over 1 year ago Laila was diagnosed with Diabetes. A lot of people will ask how we knew something was wrong, what tipped us off to her illness, and the easiest answer I can give them is how skinny she was. I look back at the photos of her from her 5th birthday and she was still in a size 4T, having worn the same size clothes for nearly two straight years. Since then, I'm happy to report she's gained well over 10 pounds and almost two full sizes in clothing. As I was going through the shirts in the boxes, I had no idea the overwhelming feeling I would have when I touched some of the shirts I remember her wearing. The shirt she wore the day she was admitted to the hospital, the pajamas she begged me to bring for her to sleep in, it was gut wrenching. I was looking forward to seeing Kenadi wear some of those shirts, but as my mind flashed back to those awful days of fear and agony, I'm not sure I can let that happen.

Yesterday, I washed all the clothes in those boxes. I folded them and smiled to myself as I stacked them in piles for the girls to put them away. Whether or not I'll ever allow Kenadi to wear some of those clothes is still up in the air; the clothes don't make the child, or the memories. Here's to creating new memories, out with the old, and in with the new-no matter what shirt you have on.