This weekend we took advantage of some free time and swapped all of the kids’ summer clothing out for fall and winter clothing. This meant that I pawed through each child’s box, pulled out stuff to keep in the box, stuff to donate, and stuff to store. Then I sorted through the saved clothes and the purchased clothes to put the right size in each child’s box.

The three boys’ went around naked for a good hour or more because I had them trying on and taking off so many clothes. (There was a bit of confusion with the sizing this year and I had no idea what I had purchased for any one child.)

We also went through all the shoes, gloves, coats, scarves, and hats. We revamped a closet to hold all of what we kept. It took Andrew and I an entire day to accomplish this. After which, we were completely and utterly exhausted.

But when you do the math, you start to understand why…

Assuming that:

The boys only had 4 pairs of pants, 4 shirts, 2 church pants, 2 shirts, and 4 pajamas each (which is a low assumption because people give them stuff and they manage to collect the odd shirt here or there)

then I removed a total of 48 items from their boxes.

I then replaced them with 48 more.

And assuming that:

The girls had, by rough estimate, 20 items in their boxes each, 5 church dresses a piece (because we Southern ladies like our options for worship), and 6 pajamas a piece,

then I removed a total of 93 items from their boxes.

I replaced them with a good 93 more, although I suspect that number was higher.

If you then add:

The three garbage bags full of clothes that we were given that had to be sorted through,

The 16 pairs of shoes that I removed from the 30-some odd pairs jammed into our shoe box,

The 12 coats I saved from the 20 we had,

The 8 scarves,

The 20 hats (WHY so many hats?)

46 random socks I ran across in my plundering

and the 38 pairs of underwear…

I handled roughly 444 items of clothing, plus 3 garbage bags worth.

Just doing the math makes me need a nap.

And then I remember… my youngest daughter came to us with one torn, dirty white dress that was three sizes too big and a few t-shirts. She didn’t have shoes until we sent money for them to be purchased.

So these First World “problems” that take just one day and some grunt work to solve? That are the result of some fun shopping and gifts from friends?

Worth every second…

Not everyone is called to adopt, but we could all give a little of that money we save shopping at consignment sales and thrift stores to help children who need A meal for the day or A shirt for their bodies. A great place to start is a one-time donation to Compassion International. Nobody paid me or asked me to mention them. I just thought I would.

Photo courtesy of my talented sister.