About 3 months ago a friend organized a really fun activity where we sewed and created the cutest sock kittens. I know my kids liked them, they slept with them at night and they were so stinkin' cute how could they not? Yet, when it came time to clean their rooms today I realized the kittens had to go.
This was a hard decision.
Why though really? One kitties head was safety pinned on because we ran out of time to finish the cat and it ended up on of our list of projects that will just have to be finished later. So why so difficult?
Maybe because it was unfinished...maybe because of who I made it with...maybe because I was the only one that felt sad about getting rid of the kitty.
Lately I've been wrestling with the thought and the scary conclusion that my kids don't value their things.
My mom is an avid yard saler and she's good at it, so every few weeks we are given great new things that she finds. A lot of it has to get thrown out just so I can keep some sort of semblance of tidiness in our house.
So do my kids not value things because my mom attends yard sales and they know new things are always coming in?
While I would love that to be the answer (because that's easy to pinpoint) I don't feel that's the whole story. How do I instill this sense of "value for things" in my children?
My only solution, thus far, has been the mantra of Less is More. If they have less things and really think about what to acquire will that help?
I guess for the meantime I'll continue to throw away sock kitten heads and silently mourn.