*THE PAINS OF HOUSE CLEANING*

Last night I finally got to clean my house and it was long overdue. I decided to go through and purge all of the kids clothes. Downstairs I organize them into plastic bins of shoes / Maren's Soon to be Clothes / and clothes for Baby Audry.

I first started out in Alexa's room. Alexa could care less about clothes and thinks going through them is boring. However, she did very well at putting up with me as I asked her to try on tons of different shirts and pants. If they were to small she would say "oh, well" and toss them into the "soon to be Maren's pile." Only once did she say something about giving a pair of pants away. She said "oh, man - I had great memories in these pants." I asked her what they where and she replied, "These are the pants I skied in." and then that was that.

Halfway through Alexa's clothing purge, Maren walked in. She saw all the clothes flying everywhere and got really excited when I told her that she was next in line. We headed up to her room where I started in on the shorts and jeans. At first she had a blast which one she would pick out to try on, if it didn't fit, we would say "Baby Audry's pile." Everything went pretty well up to a certain point.

Then it dawned on her. She wasn't just trying on the clothes. She was giving them away if it went into the "Baby Audry pile." The tears started coming. She tried to convince me she needed all of the clothes and that Baby Audry was way to tiny to wear them anyway.

I moved on to the closet where all of her dresses and shirts where. For her it was so painful. She sat down in the middle of the giveaway pile and started holding onto each article of clothing I would toss out screaming "No, not that one. I love that one." She kept screaming "Stop doing this mommy! Stop it!" It broke my heart. (Note to Erin - you may want to wash the clothes once you get them - Maren sobbed heavily into several of the shirts.)

Now what am I supposed to do? Keep items that are all to small and spare Maren's feelings? Guess which ones are too small and do it while she wasn't around? I was stuck. Here I am - the one night I have to myself to clean - and I can't get anything done.

All of a sudden, Alexa unknowingly solved the problem. She ran up and asked if she could play in the sprinkler. I said yes of course and all of a sudden the tears dried up and Maren ran over and gave me the biggest hug. I put her swimsuit on and that was the end of all of our problems. While they played outside happily, I ran to put all of the clothes in their proper bins before anyone noticed.

Baby Audry - you owe me one when you get a little older.