Clutter

I'm not a fan of it. But it seems to haunt me.

A friend of mine will be welcoming a grandson in May. Her son and daugher-in-law are in a financial pickle (who isn't?) and so she asked if we had any boy items we would like to sell or give to them.

I had already donated most of his clothes from the past 2 years and kept a bag full of sentimental-ish clothing that some day I will have made into a quilt, so I really have no clothes for them. I recently sold all of his baby Robeez on eBay. And even most of his toddler/walker shoes, too.

So, I took inventory of the things we still have that would be useful for a newborn: we have 2 Diaper Champs and 2 changing table pads and 4 changing table covers. Yet, our son has been out of diapers for 3 months. We have a pack-n-play and a pack-n-play sport (for outdoor use) - we have never used the Sport, and haven't used the other since October of last year and even then it was not a success. We have a booster chair that hasn't been used since before he turned 2. We have a floor activity gym (the panda) that was given to us by a friend - probably my sons favorite thing when he was an itty-bitty - but hasn't been used in more than 2 years. We have a snap-n-go stroller frame (that you snap the carseat into and it becomes a stroller), that was probably used 10 times - and certainly not since he was about 3 months old!

All of these things are NO LONGER IN MY HOUSE! It's an incredible feeling.

I was up at 4:15am this morning (due to going to sleep at 7pm last night, thanks to 2 valium and another shot in the spine) and was very excited to have my half bath back. No changing table pad on the counter, and no diaper champ on the floor. I promptly put all the other stuff that was in a basket on the counter, in a drawer (creams, lotions, bandaids, hand sanitizer, thermometer, etc). I put the basket on the back of the toilet and put bath spray, and the books my son likes to read while he poops in it. WOW. What a difference. No more chaos in the half bath.

I wasn't able to do anything with the changing table in his room this morning. My husband built a shelf in the closet and that's what was used as the changing table in his room. It was very handy and very inconspicious. Until I can get that shelf taken out, it will probably just sit there with nothing on it and that's fine by me.

I'm going to try to tackle some other clutter areas of the house. Next stop: the Living Room.