The Clothing of an Era

Or maybe the closing of an era! 

I haven't talked much here about coming to terms with leaving Babyville.  I lived there for so long, and I had such a nice time there, that I can't leave without "a sigh and a tear in the eye."

But with all the organizing, I came to the realization that I no longer need to save the baby clothes for the "next one."

And if I don't need to save them for my own children, holding them meant they were not on other children, and maybe not on other children who needed them.

So, I did what I do when things get tough: I threw a party!

I hauled out 21 bins of girls' clothing from newborn to size 10, and 12 bins boys' clothing from newborn to 4T and invited all the moms I knew to a tea party and clothing give away.

Did I mention the coats and snow suits?

People came and browsed and chatted and drank tea.  And, God bless them, they hauled away bags and bags of clothes!

Astoundingly, after they left, I realized they had not made a sizable dent in my clothing stockpile, leading me to wonder how many more children I had thought I was having!

To be fair, I have had babies in every size, shape, gender, and season, and I have always had clothes for all of them.  I really had been throwing away the worn out stuff, but I was also loaning out clothes, and they always seemed to come back with more!

So now we are in phase 2: we have been transferring bins to bags, and bringing the bags to the crisis pregnancy center.

So far we've brought them 25 garbage bags of clothes.

That's about a third of it.