A few days ago, my oldest daughter was at a church event with kids her age all day. Not long after, she mentioned to me quietly that she found out that day that she was the only kid there with only one pair of shoes.
I asked her a few questions, and more information came out about what had happened over the next day or so.
I felt really sad that it was at a church function where my kid began to feel insecure about Stuff. I had to think about it for a while before I came back to her about it.
I have what they call a Large Family. In fact, as one of my sister-in-law’s friends put it, “That squad is deep.” I don’t know if it was meant as a compliment, but I like it. We have a Deep Squad.
Sometimes we get a super warm welcome.
Our kids are generally well behaved. They are smart, and interesting. Yep, they totally have their bad days, and when they are excited and confined to a small space, even I don’t want to be with them.
The summer of 2015, I bought and read Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing, along with everyone else on the internet.
I have lost count of the number of garbage bags of stuff that went out the door as a result of reading it, but I would guess not less than twenty. I have never thought of myself as too sentimental about stuff. Yet I was storing craft supplies that I “might need” someday, excessive amounts of hand-me-downs for the kids, and a number of items in my own closet I was holding on to for the wrong reasons.
I hate feeling tied down. I thought about what would happen if we ever moved. I wouldn’t have time to deal with all our stuff. I’d end up throwing it in boxes and bringing it along even though it wasn’t worth keeping. Keeping the toys picked up had become onerous. My kids’ drawers were overflowing. My kids weren’t capable of keeping up with their own stuff themselves, and I couldn’t live with the disorder.
(Dead Horse Point State Park. We stopped there after going to Arches National Park in Moab, Utah on Road Trip 2016. If you are planning a road trip and Utah is on it, stop here. It was breathtaking.)
Recently at the library, I walked up to the counter surrounded by the kids, each holding their own pile of books. The librarian greeted us, and without saying anything else, turned around and pulled my inter-library loan books off of the shelf behind the front desk.
I hadn’t given him my card, he just knows who I am.
It felt really good to be known.
I just quit Facebook a month ago. Most of my closest friends live far away. My local ones friends I see sporadically at best, almost always with kids in tow. Life feels really lonely.
Number Three turned nine this day (although I confess I set a high bar by publishing the three year old’s photos on his birthday and will be back dating this one).
She is kind, tender, helpful, loving, and hard working. She is a star dancer. She loves to read.
