Crunchy granola moving-with-kids advice:
Involve the children fully in the process of sorting through their belongings, deciding what to move and what to donate to an appropriate charity such as Goodwill. The children will be amazed to discover exactly how much they own and how few of their many toys they actually play with on a regular basis. This can be the beginning of an ongoing conversation about your family's attitude toward possessions . . . .
Reality:
"How about this stuffed dog for the give-away box?" (holding up fuzzy dog that has been squashed in the bottom of the stuffed animal bin for a year at least)
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Not Fluffy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
"What about Clue, Jr.? You never play Clue Jr"
" We do SO play it! We played it with Alexis last time she babysat us!" (Alexis left for college in the fall of 2004)
. . . As unidentified, moldy, greyish blobs are lobbed toward the trashcan---
"But those are my Playdough creations!!!!!!!"
Reality Based Moving-with-kids advice:
Always sort through the childrens' belongings while they are away at school. Be ruthless. Throw away any toy that has not been played with in recent memory. Toss all art projects that have hung around longer than three months. Chances are the children will not notice, but if they do you can always blame the moving company.
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11 comments:
This reality is sometimes also applied to spouses. . .
LOL...wonderful piece of advice. Sure does work with my 13 year olds room.
emily--yeah,that's a blog for another day . . .
I regularly sneak into the playroom and throw away stuff from McDonalds Happy Meals. And--gasp--artwork. And stuff they got in goodie bags from birthday parties.
I'm brutal on the throwing away...
hee hee
Getting the kids out of the house is key to packing!
Another strategy: give them each one medium-sized box for stuff they can't live without, but which would have otherwise been dumped. Let them pick what goes in it. (Don't tell them what you are doing with the other stuff.) You can always dump the medium-sized box, later, after they have forgotten about it. We just dumped ours in November, after 1.5 years in this house. I moved my kids three times with this strategy and at 18.5 and 15, they are still speaking to me on most days.
The only thing I'd say is, DO try to remember roughly what you have dumped...so that if the awful day dawns when an indignant voice demands its whereabouts, you are ready with the "It must have got lost in the move" line...or you will, as I did, spend all of your day off hunting for something that, with belated hindsight, I now recall consigning to a skip 18 months ago!
haaaaa! love this.
Let's hear it for reality1
Warning - I 'lost' a tiny doll (polly pocket sized ) of my DD in our move here. It's 8 years or so ago and she still remembers it.
We still have trouble going through too small clothes too. Again best done when they aren't around. I'm pretty good at giving to good will /throwing away if broken etc also with my own stuff - but DD and hubby are hoarders! Grrr
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