It’s Sunday morning and everyone but me is in bed. This weekend I’ve been thinking about the saga that is trying to destash Kaitlin’s wardrobe and how to keep whittling it down.

And now I know. It’s a bit gutting really. Given my daughter’s wardrobe choices of the last week, I know that all she wants to wear is dresses.

It’s getting hot here at the moment. We are getting to have lots of garden time and be out in the sunshine. Dresses don’t seem an unreasonable thing to want to wear.

But she has some gorgeous shorts and so many t shirts they pop out of her drawer if you don’t fold them right. They have pictures and patterns and sparkles and glitter… Some of them are fluorescent pink. But she drops them all in favour of a dress.

This weekend I asked her to wear this pair of shorts and this top from Zara. It’s the first time she’s worn the combination and she looked absolutely stunning, even at three. But the whole time getting her dressed we were negotiating about a dress. Eventually she put the shorts and top on, with the agreement that if it got really hot she could swap them for a dress.

Two and a half hours later she was a wearing a dress.

*sigh*

Now, Kitty is a lovely little girl and she aims to please. Whatever I say to her she always wants to say what she thinks I want her to say. This is partly a feature of her age, I am sure. But it means that it is difficult to work out what she truly wants. If I suggest that we get rid of something because she doesn’t like wearing it she will always tell me she does, and she will wear it. Then she doesn’t…

So yesterday, I took a deep breath (because as I am sure you have guessed, I love pretty much all her clothes) and told her that since all she really seems to enjoy wearing is dresses, that I was thinking we should get rid of most of her trousers and t shirts and shorts, and just keep two or three pairs of leggings for when it’s a bit chilly, her favourite red dungarees, some cardigans and lots of dresses. “Mmm” she says, nodding at me earnestly. I also told her we should keep the gorgeous shorts and top set because mummy loves it, and her jumpsuit, and when the autumn comes we’ll buy her a lot of new tights. (Kaitlin’s very favourite thing to wear is dress and tights, and she’d wear thick woolly tights in 30 degree heat given half a chance. That’s a separate battle…)

In the afternoon I sneaked into her bedroom to try to get rid of some stuff. I did remove another small pile. A couple of pairs of shorts, 3 t shirts, a huge bundle of too small tights.

But the rest is still there! Why? I’m really not 100% sure. Because it seems a waste… It might as well be there and consigned to “probably no use” and be gotten rid of at a later date? But still be there “just in case”… I mean, three year olds are fickle, right?Because she actually will probably want to wear her starry Boys&Girls Shop skater skirt in the autumn because it’s thick jersey and actually it twirls really well?

Because I can’t get rid of what used to be her favourite pink skirt, just in case she demands it again one day? And it doesn’t even fit her properly yet! It will fit all winter! Because I LOVE her Little Bird skirt and top outfit… Because some things were gifts… And I can’t choose which t shirts to lose…

And then I realised something else. Remembering that my gorgeous daughter is only three… She might suddenly decide one day that she hates dresses. It only takes one bad experience weeing through your dress when you were in a rush and shorts will be king.

I need to be more responsible about how I buy, and just buy much less stuff, in good quality – as I’ve discussed in my previous posts – and, as I have already said, this autumn/winter the shopping will be slow and carefully picked, and restricted to a certain number of outfits (I think she should have about 10 outfits to choose from). But getting rid of everything we already have is counter productive when some of it might be useful. There is certainly no point in removing whole categories of clothing! That, I feel, might be short sighted…

So where there is excess, I’m going to offer my friends a choice of whatever they want. I like giving to charity but I’m struggling to choose what to remove. So long as the clothes are loved and worn that is what is important, which is why I’ll let my friends choose what to take away for me. I won’t offer what I know have been her favourites. Then perhaps I will have a little less frustration at all the beautiful clothes, that Katy would look awesome in, just sitting in her drawers…

Aha, I can hear Kaitlin up and about. Time to put my blog away. Maybe next time I write Kaitlin’s wardrobe will be smaller…. But I doubt it!