When less is less, and less is better

It's another episode of "What they don't have, they won't miss" around here.  I packed away a TON of stuff.  I left their Imaginext toys and castles, as well as their Christmas presents.  Everything else that was not neatly stowed in containers in the closet in the family room got put away.  And you know what?  

They don't care.  Not one little bit.

And in fact, they aren't even searching for the boxes I used like they normally do.


I'm going to hit the playroom soon too.  That stuff is far more organized, but it's still alot.  Trucks, cars, trains, dinosaurs, loads of action figures....Time to thin it all out a bit more.  They are happier with LESS.

I remember as a kid, I never felt like I lacked anything.  (Or, at least, that's how I remember it.  My mom may beg to differ.)  I had a big wooden toy box at the end of my bed that was pretty full, and around Christmas it'd get weeded out to make room for Santa's gifts.  That was it.  I didn't have all the space my kids do now.  They have SO MUCH SPACE to have toys.  We have play space upstairs in the family room.  They have a basement playroom.  They keep a couple of small toys in their rooms (but they have to fit on the shelf of their bed, no more than that).  But with the little space we had in our 4 room apartment growing up, I felt satisfied.  I didn't feel like mom & dad were holding out on me by not getting me the next best thing.  Except for that one fit I still clearly remember throwing in KMart because I was certain my dad had promised me a toy and I wasn't getting it for some reason.  As if that fit was going to convince him to buy it for me, right?

Sorry guys.  :-)  I'm sure glad you still loved me after that.


And so, this is a new year.  I can see clearly that my kids don't NEED stuff for entertainment.   The fact that they run around the house constantly with a blanket tied around them and waving my wooden spoons at each other tells me that what we have is sufficient.  More than sufficient really. 

I'm starting to look forward to consignment season. 

And it's January...

We're half-way through our school year now!!  It's amazing.  Drew is still flying through the material.  I'm just aching to teach him something he hasn't already figured out!!  He picked up a 2nd grade math book over our vacation and started answering questions.  Umm...someone tell that kid he's in 1st grade!  It's great though.  I'm looking forward to opportunities to challenge him.  We're moving into the "experiments" part of our science book, so he's defnitely getting more interested there.  AND...we signed up for a chick-hatching project!  We'll borrow an incubator from the local extension office, care for the eggs until they hatch, and then for the chicks for 4 weeks after.  At that point, we will bring them back to the farm to do what chickens do best.  Drew and Ben are really excited for this.  I just hope our dog behaves!

Drew's going through a funk these past few weeks.  He's decided he is scared of the pitching machine and doesn't want to play baseball this year.  He really dislikes Cub Scouts.  I told him he should really do something, and he said he'd like to start swimming lessons regularly.  I think that's very ok.  I'm going to see what we can do to get that going again.  He's a natural in the pool and really enjoys it.  Swim team could be in our future??  He's super competitive though (read: hates to lose), so he may struggle with that.  He's got to learn somehow though.

Ben is flourishing even though we aren't formally doing school with him yet.  We do a lot of reading together, and just tonight he started sounding out some simple words with me.  He can write all his uppercase letters and numbers.  He's so quick to pick things up it makes me feel bad that we aren't doing something more regularly with him.  It has to be on his terms though right now, because when I ask him to do it, he fights against me.  I told him that in the fall he'll have to do a bit more with me every day instead and he said "Well, of course mama.  That's what kindergarteners do!"  So, he'll be ready soon enough.

Sam is finally talking.  It's so nice that he is truly communicating with us now!!  Short sentences, clear words most of the time, and the rest of the time we can figure out what he's trying to tell us.  All this from a child who was just grunting 4 months ago. 

Well, I'm off to put a ton of toys into storage.  All I've seen is toys strewn all over the floor for the past several days and no one playing with them.  For the first time in ages, when I gave the boys a heads up that my plans were to do that tonight, they said "Yeah, that's probably a good idea mom."  Yep, they've got far too much and they know it.