There is a crazy multiplication factor that happens in a family of 6. I don't care what *something* you're dealing with, you multiply anything by 6 and you end up with...too much!!
I'm an only child. My husband is an only child. Childhood was rather uncomplicated for us. If you have only one child, the material junk that comes with that child is reasonable: one room, one bed, one closet, one dresser, a few coats, a few pairs of shoes, etc. No problem. However, if you have four children...Oy! I'm starting to think we should have just moved our family into Walmart to save on closet space!
The spontaneously reproducing items that are currently driving me out of my mind are shoes. They're everywhere! Stuffed in every closet, stacked on shoe racks, piled in shoe buckets, sprawled on the rug, lost in the car, stashed in the garage, abandoned on the deck. And, mind you, this is after I've gotten rid of every shoe that doesn't fit, is worn out beyond recognition, or doesn't suit a distinct purpose. Shoot, sometimes I even pitch a pair just because I've tripped over them one too many times!
I've done some pondering, and come to the conclusion that each of our children has a basic collection of shoes that we normally keep on hand for various purposes:
1. A pair of tennis shoes
2. A summer pair of dress shoes
3. A winter pair of dress shoes
4. A pair of crocs
5. A pair of flip-flops
6. A pair of winter boots
7. A pair of rain boots
7 pairs of shoes...multiply that by 4 kids...that's 28 pairs of shoes...that's 56 SHOES!!!
There are important factors that number does not take into account: it doesn't count all the "cute" shoes that their grandparents found on clearance and just "couldn't pass up"; it doesn't take into account the fact that they have about three pairs of flip-flops each, not one; it glosses over the fact that we tend to hold onto a pair of old, grungy tennies for each kid for things like camping; it certainly doesn't include slippers; it also doesn't factor in those "out of the ordinary" kinds of footwear that kids seem to accumulate - ice skates, water socks, ballet slippers, etc. Oh yes, and last but not least, that number doesn't account for any of my husband's or my shoes (which, trust me, is no small number!!)
On rough estimation, I would bet that we have well over 150 shoes floating around this joint! (Hey...maybe that's why our mudroom has the faint odor of a high school locker room!)
Don't even get me started on coats. Winter coats, spring coats, rain coats, motorcycle jackets, fancy dress coats, oil covered working-on-the-car-in-the-middle-of-winter coats...)
3 comments:
That's so funny--shoes have been on my mind today, too! They ARE everywhere--even with two children.
How different than my childhood when a girl had one pair that were worn with her dresses and slacks. You were bought a cheap pair of tennis that were kept at school for gym. In the summer you were barefoot. On the rare occasions you had to wear shoes you had to squeeze into the ones from the past school year making whatever event you going to painful on so many fronts. Even as an adult I struggle with the quantity now in my closet and wonder how I've gone from point A to point B. Good luck!
ha ha ha!! you just need to do what we do -- have your kids leave their shoes all OTHER people's houses! : )
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