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I’ve come to accept the fact that fall is really here, and today I completed the process of switching the kids summer and fall/winter clothes.  It’s not as late in the year as it might sound to be doing this — even here in the “frigid north” we were all wearing shorts just last week. However, the temperatures in the 10 day forecast are only trending downward from here, so I think it is really time for us to be wearing pants and long-sleeve shirts or sweaters on a daily basis.  For the next six or seven or eight months.

Switching kids clothes is always more of an ordeal than switching the grown-ups’ clothes.  Going through the seasonal changing of kids clothes means examining each item to decide if it there is still a possibility that this item might still fit when the next season change occurs in several months.  If it’s not going to fit, one has to decide whether to keep or get rid of the item in question.  I make the latter question easy by basically keeping everything unless it is practically ruined.  (The down side of this is that I have dozens of storage bins in the garage filled with kids clothing! We now know for sure we’ll be using the boy clothes again very soon, and if we do ever have another little girl, I can’t imagine having to re-acquire all the needed clothing!)

We’ve added a new wrinkle to the process this year as well — Madeline has developed an attachment to certain items in her wardrobe.  I’ve been prepping her for days that we would need to put away her favorite dress – the “black dress with the red bow.”  It’s getting a little short, a small hole is developing in the shoulder…and I am so sick of seeing it since she has worn it almost weekly since about last November, no matter what the weather.

Luckily when I opened up her box of clothes for this fall/winter, we discovered it contained seven, yes seven, velvet/velour dresses.  I guess I really wasn’t keeping very close track of things as I did my garage sale and thrift store shopping, and I bought a lot of winter size 5 fancy dresses.  I mean, who can resist fancy holiday/party dresses for a buck or two when they probably cost twenty or thirty dollars or more new? Madeline turned out to be fairly willing to “trade in” her favorite black dress for the seven new beautiful velvety dresses that she can wear this winter.   We had a nice family moment with her saying “goodbye” to the black dress, and each of us giving the dress a hug before Madeline put it in the box of outgrown clothes.

What did take me by surprise was Madeline’s reaction when I told her that her pink plaid skirt needed to go in the “outgrown” box because it was getting too short.  She burst into tears and had to take several minutes to collect herself.  I had no idea she was so attached to that particular item. But, she did manage to get herself together and resume helping me stack the folded clothes into storage boxes.

One thing that does make me regret not doing this sooner is I now realize what the kids’ wardrobes are missing for this fall/winter (well, mostly what Erik’s wardrobe is missing).  Of course the 50% off sale at Savers was a month ago, and there may not be another one until January…and it’s really getting to be the tail end of the garage sale season around here.

I terribly miscalculated when it came to pants for Erik for this fall.  For some reason I really thought that he would be in 24 month/2T pants for this fall, and I have quite a large stack of those. I’m not sure why I thought that though, because he has a long torso and short legs…and has always been at least one size behind in his pants compared to his shirts.  Consequently, I am still rolling up the cuffs on his few pairs of 18 month pants while he has been in 2T/24 month shirts for over a month.  Erik has a few pairs of khaki/earth tone pants from last spring and one pair of jeans that fit.  Unless I score big at the thrift store soon, I may have to — gasp — actually walk into Target or Wal-Mart and buy a couple pairs of jeans for Erik for this fall at full price.  I also realized I have no medium-weight or fall jacket for him, only one sweater that fits, and in general few “nicer” shirts.  So, I am definitely hoping for a few thrift store, consignment shop or other bargains to fill in the gaps where I failed to complete his wardrobe during the summer garage sale season.

So…let it snow! Our closets and dressers are ready…er, um wait…the snow can definitely hold off for a couple of months at least!