Decluttering

For most people, a yearly New Year’s Resolution is to de-clutter their homes, pantry, closet, etc. For many resolution makers this is simply a task that sounds good at the time, and one that is never really followed through on.

B and I have a lot of de-cluttering to do before the baby gets here. This includes going through boxes of his grandparent’s things and deciding what to keep, donate, sell, or trash. Grandma is not particularly a fan of this, and these things are hard for her to part with.

The last couple of weekends, we have spent a couple of hours on a Saturday going through one cabinet at a time. Sometimes we find mostly junk, and sometimes we find really neat things. One particular item that I found interesting was an old Evanflo bottle that was still in the package from years ago. The packaging has seen some signs of wear and tear, and I’m sure the nipple of the bottle is not functional.

I love finding old gems like this. I don’t particularly like them well enough to keep them, but I do find them interesting. It is always so crazy to me how much parenting has changed over the years, and the things that are considered right and proper now were not even thought of back then.

Car seats are a perfect example of this. Old time car seats were meant more as a means to keep crawling children contained while the parents were driving. There was no real type of safety to them. Now, we live in an age where we know so much more about development and how accidents can actually harm children if they are not properly strapped into a car seat.

As much as Grandma’s clutter is frustrating to me at times, I do love seeing things like this even if I don’t want to keep them. Maybe we can talk her in to a flea market booth to sell it…