How to separate stuff

The girls each have their own bedroom. Emily's room, however, is not really a bedroom. It is fairly small, doesn't have a closet and should be used as an office. Or a sewing room. But it is her own space and, for right now, she doesn't recognize (or vocalize) the size difference.

In our home, the majority of toys, clothing items and hair accessories are shared. For the most part, shoes have a specific owner but there is some sharing there as well.

A few weeks ago, Emily accompanied me on an outing to the mall. I desperately need work clothes but I had a coupon for TCP so I told the girls that I would look for some back to school clothes for them. I have mostly stopped shopping ahead since they are so finicky. They do have some cooler weather clothes from last year that still fit and I have to go through the "buy ahead bag" in Anna's closet to pull out the size 4 items.

I pulled together a suit at Ann Taylor but wasn't loving the selection at TCP. Emily decided that the clothing items we purchased needed to belong to someone. So the leopard print tights were Anna's. And the purple shirt was Allie's. (That purple shirt, by the way, is going to be turned into a dress.) I decided to check out the Gymboree Outlet store. Big mistake.

I hardly ever buy any clothes at full price and even my suit (pants, jacket and shirt) only set me back $120. I have never purchased anything at Gymboree unless it was on sale or I had a coupon or Gymbucks. Emily picked out a dress for herself and then one for Anna. Not on sale. I decided to live a little and buy them. Emily then picked out tights for herself. I found a super cute sweater and matching plaid skirt for Allie.

We arrived home $100+ later to find that Allie, Anna and Rich were still out grocery shopping so Emily sorted the clothes and laid them out on the sofa so that she could show sissies what she bought them. That was all fine and dandy except that she decided that both dresses were hers.

And she announced that she wants her own clothes. We deal with this here and there because there are some clothing items that have been labeled as belonging to someone. One day there was fighting over a shirt and Grammy told the girls that they can't wear all of their clothes in one day (although, they sure do try sometimes) so now whenever someone starts whining that sissy is wearing something that doesn't belong to her, the offender will say, "Grammy says that you can't wear all your clothes in one day."

I asked Em if she wanted to move her bed into Allie's room and that way she could share the closet with Allie. We could divide the closet in half and move Anna's clothes to her closet (as soon as it is cleaned out.) Her response was, "No! I want my OWN. BEDROOM."

Tell me how you really feel.

Honestly, I really don't want to deal with three different sets of clothes. They wear the same exact size and who do you think is going to be the one to put those clothes away in separate spaces? That's right. Yours truly.

Nevermind the fact that the girls don't even have bureaus in their rooms. There is a small two drawer dresser in Em's room that is stuffed with socks, underwear and tights. And it is a mess. I don't like to spend money just to spend money so I have decided that when the girls are a little bit older, we will buy them bedroom sets that will last them FOREVER. The headboards and footboards for their current beds are from the convertible cribs and I can't stand them. Rich has tried everything and they don't fit properly onto the mattress frames.

Rich has been begging and pleading for a king size bed. Our current bedroom furniture is mine that I purchased in 1995 (and is still in great shape!) along with some mismatched pieces. I feel old saying this but if the furniture is functional, then it doesn't need to be replaced. Well, ours could be more functional so I think we are going to look at a new bedroom set (and bigger bed). This will allow us to move the bureaus into the girls' rooms so they at least can have their own underwear (looks like I'll be buying some fabric markers) and I can organize the socks and tights.

Don't ask me when I'm going to do this.