Cutting the apron strings

For the past 19 months, Bella's clothes have lived in my closet. In the beginning, it was just easier to keep her 8,000 onesies and 1500 pairs of socks downstairs rather than truck up and down the stairs everytime she needed a wardrobe change.

Then we cleaned out her room and made it safe for her to play in there on her own. Because her dresser is really a changing table with baskets as drawers, we quickly learned that she would not leave the baskets alone. Instead, she pulls them out of the shelves, dumps whatever is in them, and then throws the basket down the stairs. Once it's downstairs, she likes to sit in it or use it to reach things too high up.

So the combination of inconvenience and pure laziness led us to buy one of those canvas shelf things that hang in the closet. It worked perfectly until the recent explosion of 18-24 month clothes our nice friends passed on to us (hello, budget saver!). All of a sudden, we were faced with a clothing crisis of epic proportions. (Seriously, how did Skylar manage to wear 25 different jackets between 18 and 24 months?)

So tonight I bit the bullet and cleaned out everything except pajamas and socks from my closet. Everything else went upstairs. I didn't realize how much space one little girl's wardrobe (one who only goes to daycare 3x per week and has no other social obligations) could take up. And look at all those pajamas. I'm not even sure she'll wear each set at least once before she grows out of them. Of course now I need to clean out my closet from where I was just shoving things where they'd fit.

But the next challenge is teaching my stubborn little busy bee that she has to leave the baskets alone. We thought about buying a dresser, but where would we put it? And how would we keep her from climbing on it? The stuff hanging in the closet? All jackets - all (except a couple) from Skylar! Seriously.