Double digits!!
My kids love to draw. Especially the Princess. Remember that mess on her desk? She went through an entire pack of construction paper in a day. Yes.
To contain the plethora of scattered papers, I thought of the most brilliant of all ideas. Give them a crate to put all their drawings in. Pile em all in there.
You guessed it. To go through later.
Welcome to later.
Here's the thing. Sometimes de-hoarding has to be a process for me. Because it's better to do a little something than it is to just keep putting it off. Sometimes I have to work my way through things. Get rid of some, go back later and get rid of more, go back and weed out a little more. You know, steps. Maybe about twelve of them.
I decided to start off easy.
I simply went through and separated all the drawings from the just scribbles. Because sometimes they just scribble. The Princess is really into that fake handwriting scribble. I remember doing it too. So, we have lots of pages of that kind of scribble and other pages of just regular scribbles. Or maybe they started drawing something and didn't finish it. Where do they get that from?
I ended up with quite a large stash.
De-hoarded!
Right into the recycle bag. Note to self, need to pick up some more recycle bags. Just filled the last one!
I also pulled out anything that was just a coloring page rather than their own drawings.
De-hoarded!
And just blank cut up papers. The Princess likes to practice her scissor skills by cutting up tiny shreds of paper and scattering them about.
De-hoarded!
I was also surprised to find quite a bit of blank paper in that pile. Cause, you know, grab ten sheets of paper, draw on two, then throw the entire stack into the crate.
Brilliant.
So, that went back to the drawing board, I mean blank paper tray.
And to my great surprise, I found myself left with a tiny stack of actual drawings.
I know I need to go back through them again. Maybe keep some of the best ones, or scan them and have them made into a book or something. But that will be a much easier task now that the pile is so much smaller.
And someday the kids will look through what I did keep (ok they probably never will) and they will probably wonder why I kept so many stick figure families with frowning faces.
It's because for months after Matthew died, that is all they drew.
Then slowly those stick figures started to smile again.
And that's how I knew they were going to be ok.
Which is also why it is hard for me to get rid of any of their drawings. Because those drawings are such a window into their souls. Even when they can't express their feelings verbally, I can see them in their drawings.
I know, I need to let some of them go. I obviously can't keep all their drawings forever! I would eventually run out of room. Probably after a day or two with the rate the Princess draws!
I have given them each a "journal." It's just a spiral notebook. They are supposed to draw or write something in it each day. And date their work. I figured that way, going forward, I can just keep their journals and some of their really special other art and the rest can go.
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