simplifying // week two

This week I tackled my son’s closet, which kind of spilled over into the dresser and the rest of the room. And, I learned that deep cleaning can be therapeutic. I’ve really been struggling lately with the fact that my little one is leaving the baby stage of life. He’s almost three and a half years old, so it’s not like this should come as some big surprise, but still…it hurts. What started out as a simple matter of cleaning out Zane’s closet turned into a meditation on the boy he is becoming. And, even though it was difficult to take some things out of his room (especially that little stack of onesies; he’ll never wear a onesie again), when I stood back and looked at what was left I could really see him in a way I hadn’t seen him before. I could see the boy that he is right now. He’s not the baby in the picture on the wall; he can’t be. He’s a little boy who loves trucks, and books, and birds, and I absolutely adore the person he is now (even if I do miss that little baby sometimes). It amazes me that I had to remove the physical links to an earlier stage of Zane’s life before I could gain perspective on the arrow of time (to borrow a phrase from my smart husband). It’s a work in progress.

Here’s a list of the things I removed. I still need to go through some of this stuff and re-home or bin it, but that is perhaps a task for next week:

• a giant IKEA bag full of miscellaneous toys
• two garbage bags full of stuffed animals
• 2 laundry baskets full of clothes
• 1 garbage bag full of clothes that are too small

I also moved some of his smaller trucks from his shelf into his closet, using the tub that used to hold all of those stuffed animals. That freed up a lot of space for more of his books, and now his new trucks can occupy the place of honor for awhile.