Changing Seasons, Changing Closets

I was taking a lunch break from sorting & pricing clothes for the annual rummage sale when I read this. We have the clear plastic boxes she talks about, sorted by kid and size, but then the boxes have to go somewhere and currently they're taking over the 150 sq ft of our living room. My husband, who HATES this time of year, at least knows that once these clothes go out the door, they don't come back. What I don't sell, I can donate right at the PAMP table and leave with only my empty boxes, hangers and cash for new finds. (Oh, OK, so maybe I buy a few things when I'm there but only a few...)

Funny thing is that last year, a couple of months after the sale, I ran across a half dozen pieces I'd donated in the local Goodwill. I think they eventually sold them, but not to me :) I picked out a few new-to-me pieces, and like salmon they are making their way upstream this year to the sale, after a season out in the sun on the children as they played and grew until those clothes no longer fit them, and they were cast into still waters of the back of the closet from where I am bringing them out to go back into the churning foam of the rummage sale /thrift store cycle.

My daughter's favorite story some years ago was about a little girl (just like her!) and how one day, after a long winter it started getting warm, and so she gets out her shirt, and it doesn't fit (lots of silly noises and grunting demonstrating how she tries to pull it over her head, etc) and then her pants won't button and her ankles are poking out, and her toes are hanging over her sandals. So the little girl goes to her mother, who the girl understands is not always the best at some things and sometimes makes mistakes too, and says she forgives her for shrinking her favorite shirt and pants, but HOW did she manage to shrink her shoes as well?!? And Mommy is very very very sorry, but then realizes that it's not the clothes that have shrunk, but her daughter who has grown. And even though her very favorite shirt, pants and shoes are all now too small to wear, they will get some new summer clothes and those will be her new favorites. A pink shirt with a yellow fish that M squeezed into for *way* too long was the genesis of this story. I kinda miss telling it.