The Leftover Pile

The solution: Making my kids go naked year-round, thereby doing away with the sentimentality attached to my boys' clothing.

The problem: Yesterday was summer, today is fall. Yesterday I almost turned the air conditioning back on, today I have more windows closed than open. All the fans are turned to off and I just may take them down to the garage for their winter hibernation.

It was only a matter of time before we had to clean out drawers and do the semi-annual clothing analysis. Today is that day.

Jack and I dragged the big, old Rubbermaid container from the storage room all the way up the stairs to the living room. It is like Christmas, like getting all new clothes. Everyone was excited to see their old clothes as well as see what clothes would be handed down to them this year. They all did quite a bit of trying on, trying extra hard to make their favorite jeans seem longer, even when they were Michael Jackson short. They held onto their favorite shirt's sleeves in their hands, trying desperately to stretch them longer. Sometimes it worked, sometimes they sadly passed them down.

So now I am surrounded in the living room, clothes piled high all around me. It's easy to see which piles belong to whom. Jonah's pile for winter, Jonah's pile for summer. Gable's pile for winter, Gabe's clothes to put away from summer, and so on and so forth. There is a pile for Goodwill (or Good William. When Jonah was little, he had a pile of stuff to give to Will. Will who? we asked. He told us it was the nice man we give clothes to. His little mind had always thought that Goodwill was actually a description of a man named Will.) Then there is a pile that is going to be used, is going to fit someone, just not this year.

And then there's that pile.

That pile that lies on the floor after all the piles have gone to their respective drawers or containers. That pile that I try to overlook, but it rubs against my ankles as I pass it, begging for my attention. And eventually, I must tend to this pile.

The pile of clothes that are too small for even the youngest boy. The little clothes that have gone through one, two, or three boys. Some of the clothes are holey and worn, sometimes stained and tattered looking. The little superhero pajamas that the boys proudly wore, cape and all, and proudly proclaimed that they wanted to grow up to be a superhero. The t-shirts that have little splatters of paint stains and the long sleeve shirt with the scars of the cut-everything-with-scissors days. The jeans with grass stains. The pants with oil stains from working on the truck with dad.

These...these clothes are the ones that sit in that lonely pile.