Text from my mom group friends yesterday morning: "When is everyone switching out their kid's clothes? Like, is it too soon to put winter stuff away, do I keep some stuff out? What are you doing?? Help me!"
The question caught me off guard. 'Wait, people do this?' I didn't respond at first. Our house seems to always be in a state of hot mess. There's no way in hell I'm taking the time to sort through each season's clothes for three kids and two adults. Nope, not gonna happen. I keep all of our clothes accessible year round. When a kid comes out of their room wearing pants that are suddenly shorts or a loose t-shirt that's become a belly shirt, those clothes go in the donate pile and new clothes come out.
The answers pouring into the group text made me appreciate everyone's differences. Some of them are organized beauties who take the time to go through clothing each season, pick out the clothes that don't fit, and replace them with the current season's fashions. Some even pick out a few pieces from each season to leave in their wardrobes for easy grabbing, just in case July gives us a 60 degree day or March gives us 80's. It's Iowa, so it's really a guessing game with how the weather will be. Two other moms were like me and responded, "who the hell are you people and where do you find the time to do this?" It shouldn't be a surprise that those are two of my closest friends.
I'm not sure why, but this particular thread got me thinking. Suddenly, I remembered my mom doing this as a kid too and it really bothered me. Why couldn't I have all of my clothes available to me at all times? Is that why I stopped doing it with my own kids and myself? Or is it because storage space isn't an issue in our house? 24 hours later and I'm still thinking about it. Mostly, I'm thinking about how I completely forgot about this practice of organization and how our closets and dressers are organized, or unorganized.
So, are you a goddess (or god) and go through your children's clothes with each changing season? Replacing ones that don't fit and swapping out winter clothes for spring clothes, then summer clothes, then fall clothes? Or, do you leave all clothes out in their dressers/closests/shelves and don't think anything of it when your child emerges from their room wearing fleece pants in the middle of summer?
In case you didn't know, telling a child they might get hot in fleece Christmas jammies in June or that a tank top isn't the best option for January is common in our house.
Picture of my child most likely to wear off-season clothes. This was taken on an 86 degree day in August 2020. Not pictured: the wool socks on her feet.