Clothes

Michael and Gideon have both always been big for their ages. Michael was 11 lbs 4 oz at birth and Gideon was 9 lbs 12 oz. Neither of them EVER wore newborn sized clothes!! By the age of 1 they were wearing 3T clothes. Now they are both wearing adult Medium t-shirts and 34/30 pants!

Jason and Silas are my small ones. At 4 1/2 Silas was finally into 4T's. At 8 Jason is wearing 7's and 8's. They both gained almost nothing between the ages of 2 and 3 and stayed in the same size clothes for nearly 2 years! Before and after that they pretty much wore the size that corresponded with their age.

I have always tried to save clothes that have been outgrown to pass down to little brothers. Right now I have a closet full of clothes that don't fit anyone right now. However, since Silas is not here to pass down to, and Jason is growing at a much different rate than his older brothers, I am not sure it makes good sense to save some of the things in that closet anymore. I need to go through it and figure out what I really want to save, and what would be better passed on to someone else outside our family.

Of course, I do save some special things. I have a few pieces of baby clothes that I am saving, perhaps for grandbabies one day? A few special t-shirts that have memories associated with them. I don't want to hoard too much though.

Sometimes the boys complain of having too many clothes in their drawers, saying they don't all fit. It is usually because either they have a bunch of clothes in their drawers that don't fit anymore and they haven't been pulled out, or because they have not folded their clothes neatly and tried to jam them all into the drawers wadded up in balls. Its more often the latter. I fold their clothes for them still, most of the time. I do make them help and I do make them put away their own clothes.

I told Michael I might make him start washing his own laundry. He was complaining the other day about not having any clean clothes, but I had just done ALL of the laundry! Or so I thought. Apparently he hadn't brought his dirty laundry out of his room to be washed, therefore, it didn't get washed. He's nearly 13, seems a good age to start washing his own laundry doesn't it?