Packing Up Baby Clothes 101

The easiest way to pack up your baby's old clothes: 

1.  Quickly sort through their closets and drawers removing anything that is too little.

2.  Throw clothing into one of three piles:  a)  donate/give-away  b)  sell

3.  Take bags of clothes to be donated to Goodwill and take clothes to sell to Once Upon a Child (or your consignment store of choice).

4.  Relax because you are done and you baby's closets are now clean and ready for new clothing!

However, this is MY way of packing up my baby's clothes:

1.  When baby outgrows clothing, throw it on the top shelf of the closet.  Once the top shelf is overflowing, remove clothing and sort through one piece at a time.

2.  Smell each article of clothing hoping to catch one more whiff of that sweet baby smell.

3.  Sort clothing into five piles:  a)  sell  b)  giveaway (onesies and other clothes that the consignment store won't take)  c) donate (any clothing that I can't sell and is too small to give away to my friend with a 7 month old)  d) clothing that I want to save for the future when I have more time on my hands and can make an "old clothing" quilt for each of my children and e) throw away pile for clothing that is horribly stained

4.  After sorting clothing into each pile, look through clothing again.  Reminisce about each of children wearing those clothes.  Go get out your scrapbook and look at old photos for about an hour and remember how little your 9 year and your 5 year old really used to be.

5.  Wipe away some tears and remind your children that they are growing up too fast and need to slow down a little bit so mama can take it all in.  Get very sad at the realization that you will never give birth to another baby again.

6.  Remember that you still have 5 piles of clothing upstairs that you need to put away.

7.  Take bag of old clothing to Goodwill (after it sits  in your van for no less than 2 months).  Resist the urge to look through it one last time because you know if you do it is certain that you'll find something else that you just "have" to keep.

8.  Take box of clothes to your friend.  Be sure to close the box up before leaving the house so you won't be tempted to look through them one last time.

9.  Take box of clothing to sell to Once Upon a Child--try not to get upset if they don't like the clothes you picked out to bring in.

7.  Return home to nice cleaned out closets in which you can place another round of hand-me-downs.

That is what we've been working on today.  Oh if only I wasn't so sentimental and if I hadn't inherited my grandmother's frugal/pack-rat mentality.