The Purge

Spring Cleaning always feels good. Get rid of some stuff, gain some space, and have just a general sense of peace...for a moment at least. It has taken me almost a full week to clean out my desk area and Art room area. I don't think all people would have taken this long. I am starting to understand fully why elderly need so much help purging before they move into assisted living apartments or nursing homes. It isn't that they need so much of the physical help, as it is that they need someone to make them get rid of things, leave things behind. We can't take it all with us. Just as when I am cleaning out my desk, I can not keep every single little piece of paper my kids have drawn or scribbled on. But each scribble marks a time in space that is so precious. For instance, all of Ben's drawings of people right  now have enormous shoulders. It is absolutely adorable. Every person he draws looks like a linebacker and I love it. I can't watch the paper fall into the waste basket. Some day when I am old and I have to move, someone else will have to throw these pieces of paper away. For now though I have developed a system. The drawings, the scribbled "i luv mom" -s, the yarn with beads strung on it by 3 year old hand, it all goes into a bin, at night I empty the bin and move the precious items I cannot part with into a file, and when the file is full, the favorites go into a bin under the bed. That gives me at least 3 looks at the pieces of time before they are hidden away. My second trick is this; I take pictures of the stuff. I cannot save the igloo made of sugar cubes forever, for both space and hygiene reasons. And the poster with all the seeds stuck to it is now missing most of the seeds anyway. The student of the week posters get to hang in their rooms until they are done with them....but then I take pictures. The pictures will go into their photo albums, and poof, I have suspended time for a bit longer! So, like I said, any other person would not have taken a week to clean out my desk area and Art room; but any other person would not have spent half of that time rereading every love note, pouring over every drawing, and tearing up looking at every class picture. But that's because any other person isn't their mom.

Also I don't want to forget:
-Charlie spent the day with me yesterday as I reorganized the basement storage area and he cracked me up the whole time. He talked non-stop about how "the air goes through the pipes and blows into our house." He told me about how "the water pipes get the water from when it rains and floods and then pour water through pipes into our house and bathtub."