I’ve written before how my kids have a very very difficult time parting with any of their toys and stuffed animals but my youngest has taken it to a new level.  If she puts any trash in the trashcan and sees that I’ve thrown away a picture or a school paper, then she reaches in and pulls out the item and rushes over to me asking, “Mommy, why did you throw this away?” “The guilt”….”the shame”….I feel  terrible.  I try to explain that we don’t need to keep every single item that we get home from school and that sometimes we have to throw some things away but she doesn’t seem to buy that explanation.  She looks at me like I’m crazy then takes the castaway item, smooths out the creases and says that she likes it and will use it.  Once again, I’m feeling “the guilt”…..”the shame”.  

My girls love to draw pictures and color which is fantastic and I continue to encourage their artistic expression, but we definitely have an overabundance of their wonderful artwork.  Can you imagine keeping every page they’ve ever colored from a coloring book or every single piece of school work?  Me either.   I save many of them but we can’t keep them all.  So, now I’ll have to secretly purge these items.  The problem is that my girls have great memories and S will ask me, “did you see my kitty picture with the pink heart?”  If we can’t find the requested item then I have one distraught five year-old to console.  Do you know what makes her feel better?  Drawing or coloring another picture, the cycle continues.