My 9 and 7 year old boys have approximately 10 "every day" shirts each. However they only like about 3 or 4 of them. (Who knew that boys were that particular about clothes.) Anyway, they shuffle through their stacks of shirts and some fall on the floor and some get wadded up in the back of their dresser, and the result is a very crabby mommy--when she puts clean laundry away.
So..............yesterday I put my foot down. I even told them I was putting my foot down. They looked a little nervous, but till it was all said and done I think they like the new system.
I pulled all their clothes out of their cupboard/dresser. I was washing their clothes yesterday--so I did this as I was folding the clean clothes. I sorted through them and saved out six or seven pairs of pants, and the same number of shirts--making sure that it included their "favorites".
Next I paired them together. Instead of having a stack of shirts, and a stack of pants I now had one stack of outfits. This wasn't hard to do because they mostly wear blue jeans, and so all their pants are interchangeable with all their shirts. Now they can pull a pair of pants, and a shirt out of their cupboard with very little effort.
There were no extra pants, but the extra shirts I plan to pass on to another family, or give to Goodwill. I've come to the conclusion that too many clothes do not make my life simpler. I do laundry several times a week--so this should not be a problem.
I'm curious, how do other moms handle the clothing monster? Am I being ridiculous to think my children only need 5 or 6 outfits each?
