Holy Hoarder!!!

Believe it or not, Gianna was a neat child. Things has their place & if we asked her to clean her room it would be done, no problem. She basically kept a clean room.

Second grade came along & this child changed. I've heard it said that second grade is the adolescence of elementary school. Kids stretch limits & test their independence. Gianna definitely fit this description (Marissa went through it too). One of the obvious changes was her room.

This disturbing mess is pretty much what started "Operation: De-Hoarding".  That pile of books towards the bottom right was her attempt at cleaning....

So lately, Gianna's room has been a crazy mess. We would tell her to clean her room & she'd make the motions but nothing seemed a lot different. Something needed to be done. This child needed an intervention. She needed a rough, tough no holds barred clean out.

That's where I came in.

I first made her go through her books & make a donate, store & keep pile. I was happy with her decisions & ready to move on to the next step. We went through her bookcase (that holds more than her books) & I made her make some harsh choices. She had lots of those stupid little fast food toys that I made her trash. She opened a purse that had another purse in it, when we opened that purse it had yet another purse in it that had some junky toys in it.

No lie.

Don't go thinking I made her get rid of all her favorite things. I'm not entirely mean, despite what you might've heard. She had three choices with everything: keep, donate, store. This pic was just stuff from her bookcase...I basically was done for the night at this point.  Progress was made but I needed a break.

It took awhile....I made her do most of the work so she wouldn't feel like I was getting rid of things behind her back (Not that I would EVER do that...snicker...). While this was going on, I happened to peek inside her dresser & wanted to cry. All the times I've made sure her clothes came out of the dryer wrinkle free was for nothing (I do not like to iron clothes). {BTW-I make the girls put their clothes away} I took everything out & was amazed at how many things didn't fit her that were still in her drawers. I thought we had cleaned this out not that long ago??? I basically trimmed down each drawer in half. I have a friend whose daughter I can pass these on to...it'll be Christmas in August for her!

Our next attempt was made a couple days later.  This time we were focusing on her closet.  This girl doesn't get a lot of new clothes, she gets all of Marissa's hand-me-downs plus clothes from my niece Nikki.  Don't get me wrong she gets new clothes but not a whole new wardrobe.  Believe me, she's not deprived.... 

We started working on her shoes.  I made her try them all on to see whether they fit or not & about half of them didn't fit. Some were so worn out & were just trashed.  This girls basically lives in flip flops during the summer.
 

I then tackled the winter clothes on the left side of the closet & found lots of clothes that won't fit her come the cold weather months.  All her pants, Capri's & shorts were folded & put on the shelves where her shoes were.  She had trouble getting them on hangers so we made some much needed changes.  Looks so much better.  I still have to go through the right side of the closet since I can't fit anything else in there.  It's all her summer clothes (dresses or outfits on the top), but I suspect several items are small for her & have slipped through other "clean-outs". 

I feel like we accomplished something.  Her room looks so much better.  Perfect it is not, but I'm OK with that.  Now to find something to do with all these extra baby hangers.....I have tons more......