This week I sorted through a ton of kids’ clothes. I sorted through closets. I sorted through drawers. I sorted through boxes and bags of clothes that we have stored. I sorted through a lot of stuff. And, I am now ready to give away a lot of stuff.

What did I pull out to give away? I pulled out all clothes with big holes in them. My 6-year-old, especially, is prone to getting holes in his clothes. He’s an active boy who takes lots of tumbles as he rides his bike, climbs trees, and generally spends lots of time outside running, jumping, hiking, and playing. A couple of pairs of pants that had huge holes in both knees were cut off into shorts for the upcoming summer. Those that had holes and were also greatly stained (with paint, grease, food, or whatever other mystery substance makes it onto my child’s clothes) I simply got rid of.

Anything my 6-year-old had outgrown that was still in relatively good condition, I put into a box to save for our growing toddler. Everything else went into a donation pile.

I pulled out all items that my toddler has now outgrown, including shoes, boots, winter gear, and an assortment of clothes. As I removed the smaller clothes from his drawers and put in the next size, I put in what I thought he was likely to wear this next season. Right now he’s just starting to show an interest in toilet training. That means that anything in this upcoming size that I don’t think he could take off easily himself (to be read: toddler pants with zippers and buttons) went into our pile of clothes to give away.

I also sorted through some clothes that my boys were recently given as hand-me-downs (aside from underwear, socks, and some shoes, almost all of my boys clothes are hand-me-downs or bought at thrift stores). We kept most of them, but I sorted out the items that I knew I would not put on my boys: those covered in licensed characters, with sexist sayings, or the generic sports stereotyping that happens on so many boys clothing items (I just deleted three paragraphs on why I don’t dress my boys in these items: watch for this topic in an upcoming post – apparently I have a lot to say about it.).

You can see from the above I pulled out a huge number of items to get rid of. Our closets feel lighter already.

How did you simplify your life today?