Cleaning House

I am a little clutter-phobic. I am not sure why, although I have some ideas, but it is something that is getting worse vs. better. Part of it is the girls. It is sooo easy to accumulate stuff with little ones. But, I make an effort to keep it to a minimum. Our girls do not have a lot of toys, but they have more than they could play with on any given day. Just how little they do have was very apparent this weekend. I am a member of a mothers-of-multiples club here in town. I joined while pregnant with the girls so I could have a better understanding of what it would be like to have twins and to meet other women since I was no longer working outside of the home. It has been a great experience; there are so many amazing moms! Three times a year the members host a garage sale of sorts that is open to the public. This was my first time participating. We can only sale maternity, baby/ child clothes, equipment, toys. At each sale 25 members participate (the total club has about 200 members). Friday night we set everything up in the church gymnasium - it was astounding. There were mounds of toys on several tables, racks and racks of clothes for boys & girls, books, baby tubs, breast pumps, You name it and it was probably there. My clutter-phobia kicked into high gear, and I was determined not to bring anything home other than a check! The girls are 2 1/2 so I had a lot of clothes, some shoes and only a couple of toys (although in hind sight I really should have gotten rid of more toys). During the sale on Saturday I talked to women who were pregnant with singletons, twins & triplets, some had their little ones in tow, lots of grandparents, foster parents. It was great. Our clutter, was going to someones home to be made useful again. I feel great having cleared out some stuff, made a little money and everything is being recycled. Win- win.
One another note. We have a pool which was a requirement for both of us when house hunting a few years back. It is up to code and has a baby gate which we have always used, until we started showing our house. "It shows better with the gate down" was the comment of several realtors. So, we took it down. The girls have had safe-start swimming lessons, but again, they are 2 1/2 so we are always uneasy having them outside with the gate down. Wednedsay, little Erika took a dive while reaching for her cup she was playing with. Everyone panicked. Ainslee was screaming "sissy", Erika was just screaming, and Martin and I scrambled to get her out. The lessons kicked it beautifully - her head never got wet and she held on like a champ, but let me tell you. What a scare. A little while later I heard Erika giggling in the living room while I was in the kitchen cooking and I thought to myself: "If I never heard that precious giggle again . . .". We have both been rethinking our desire to have another pool once we move. This definitely confirmed my opinion!