grrlTravels

A scanner is a good idea. Just scan the items and toss the original...at least for the non-three-dimensional ones.

Otherwise, you will be swamped. Utterly and absolutely swamped. You will, indeed, need a third storage unit. And a fourth by the time he's in first grade. And it never stops...

I am trying, desperately, to be hard-hearted about things.

I have no suggestions... I want to keep everything, too. That letter to his brother is heart-breakingly sweet.

Love Z's pictures on the last post.

I had this conversation - or one very like it - this weekend, because my house is buried under toddler artwork. I was pointed at the scanner too. Can't believe I hadn't thought of it. One more thing for my list of things I'll never do.

Take pictures of things? Scan them?

Honestly, I keep almost none of my daughter's stuff. I'm awful. But she turns out SO MUCH stuff, and we have a small house...

If it's any consolation, my mother still has the mother's day present I made for her in FIRST GRADE. It is a baby food lid with modeling clay squished inside, and fake flowers stuck into the clay. I think there's a ribbon. She has moved at least four times since then, and this thing survived the move. Yegads. It doesn't even have a picture...

Adorable. I know, it's a dilemma. I actually had a piece of note paper on my fridge for months. All it had was a scrawl on it. But it was one of the first scrawls that my then-9-month old niece did, and she did it for me...

Yeah, it looked like I was keeping garbage on my fridge. Shut up. It was only there for 6 months.

(BTW - you sure you want E's and Z's full names in the pics?)

I keep the original work and throw away coloring sheets, worksheets, most tests, etc. I have unfortunately kept the sculptures and other 3D media though I keep telling myself I should just take a picture and throw it out. And yes, there are boxes and boxes of stuff.

Sorry about the fundraisers and and charitable collections. It's been constant for us. Save your energy for later grades.

Memento Press- I scan/photo things and when I have a critical mass I send the scans to Memento Press in San Fran. (www.mementopress.com-though their website needs work) They make Beautiful albums (leather binding-very high end)and they are great gifts for grand-parents, husbands, etc.

I have a big, deep basket from Ikea for each kid, with their picture on it. We look at their artwork together, and then they put it in the basket. Everything goes in there, for the entire school year. Then over the summer (and sometimes over winter break, if the basket's getting full), I sit down in front of the tv with the baskets, and sort through it. I find I'm much less sentimental when I have a whole year's worth of stuff to look through. I take digital photos of stuff that's too big or 3D to put in an envelope, but worth remembering. Anything involving dried macaroni, painted rice, excessive glitter, sand, or leaves falls into this category. I'm ruthless about tossing stuff that doesn't showcase their individual personality in some way, so unless they completed a worksheet with some sort of creative flair that makes me go "Oh my gosh, that's SO (daughter's name)!", out it goes. Then everything goes into an oversized manilla envelope (bought a big box of these from Office Max), with their name and the year, and I put it in a labeled cardboard filing box in the garage. Yeah, I'll probably have ten tons of this stuff when they're older, but they're 3 and 7 now, and it's working out ok. The rule is that I can't keep more per year than what fits in the giant envelope. However, I can take as many digital photos as I want to.

Oh, and anything gooey, gloppy, swishy, or fluid in any way stays on the kitchen counter for a week or so, then goes right into the trash. My kids seem to make endless amounts of soda bottles filled with colored liquid squirly glittery stuff ("Mom, watch me shake this up, and all the colors mix together....pretty!") and stuff that comes home in ziploc bags called "slime." Um, thanks school.