Excessive

I've said this before, Americans are excessive in everything they do.

I'm guilty of being excessive.

So are you.

At the end of last summer when I went through my son's clothes, pulling things out he wore one time, things with tags still attached, it hit me, kids don't need an excessive wardrobe.

I stopped buying tons of clothes for him.

No more beginning of the season shopping sprees, dropping $100s on clothes that will never get worn and if they do it is only 1 or 2 times.

I cleaned up my act.  This summer I spent exactly $40 on clothes, a few new basic shirts and a few shorts.  I bought him 2 new shirts for his pictures with a gift card received from his 2nd birthday. Wow!

The rest of his clothes were hand me downs from my cousin.

I feel so good about that.

Now I'm on a toy rampage.

My husband and I pulled out not 1, not 2, but 6 large Rubbermaid storage totes stuffed with toys.

Toys I forgot we had, toys he NEVER played with.

Hell, we found 2 of those bins out in the garage and didn't even know they were there.

I was toy crazy today.

I made 2 piles.

A keep pile and a take to the local resale shop pile.

What went to the local resale shop were 3 large bins of toys, several large toys that were too big to fit inside a bin, a box of clothing from last winter and another bag of clothing that they refused last time we went.

We had so much stuff we had to remove the car seat and lay the seats in the back of the Jeep down. (don't worry, Davis was with my mom, he wasn't riding with no car seat, ha!)

When the lady realized how much we had my husband saw her mouth, "OMG", to her co-worker.

OMG is right.

I said to her, "this is all from one 2 year old who is an only child and only grandchild, it is out of control"

She laughed and nodded her head in agreement.

Davis is not getting any new toys for a long time.  He doesn't even play with the ones we did keep.

Kids don't know any better, they don't care if a toy is new or used, they also don't care how many toys they have.  What matters is they can make fun for themselves out of what they do have.

What a kid will be happy about is when he or she hits 18, is that his or her parents saved them a nice amount of money for college by not being excessive with toys or clothes.

Davis has a savings account.  Everytime I think about buying him something, we will make an extra deposit on top of what we already put in it each month.  The grandparents can start adding to the account as well for holidays and birthdays.

That is what will make Davis happy someday.

Not a $500 playhouse or a $300 sandbox or a $500 summer wardrobe or a $50 pair of shoes he wore one time.