The Artwork Guilt
Big E started preschool last August. In the year that he has been attending, I have compiled quite a collection of his "artwork".
I have only limited closet space in our house, thanks to the 10,000 Madame Alexander dolls my parents personally drove up when we moved in. As luck would have it, I have two sons. And on a side note, these dolls are big-time scary. I had them displayed in my room as a child and sometimes at night, I swore they were moving.
Anyway, I digress. I've been keeping all of Big E's artwork in the playroom closet, but at some point, I am going to run out of space.
When Big E proudly shows me his piece of white paper with two crayon marks on it, I praise him as a wonderful artist, and put in the closet. I mean, how can I throw this away? He seems so proud of himself.
I need to draw the line, pun intended. If I don't pare down his works, I'm going to have 18 years worth of this stuff taking over our house, one closet at a time.
I perused his works last night. There are definitely some pieces that aren't gallery-worthy. I started pulling them out, but then my mother's guilt flushed through my system.
It was like I was throwing out part of Big E.
So I quickly returned it all to the closet.
Maybe I'll have the strength to do the purge another day. Probably a day when he is behaving horribly and I can symbolically throw out his artwork, while secretly wishing it was him.
I have only limited closet space in our house, thanks to the 10,000 Madame Alexander dolls my parents personally drove up when we moved in. As luck would have it, I have two sons. And on a side note, these dolls are big-time scary. I had them displayed in my room as a child and sometimes at night, I swore they were moving.
Anyway, I digress. I've been keeping all of Big E's artwork in the playroom closet, but at some point, I am going to run out of space.
When Big E proudly shows me his piece of white paper with two crayon marks on it, I praise him as a wonderful artist, and put in the closet. I mean, how can I throw this away? He seems so proud of himself.
I need to draw the line, pun intended. If I don't pare down his works, I'm going to have 18 years worth of this stuff taking over our house, one closet at a time.
I perused his works last night. There are definitely some pieces that aren't gallery-worthy. I started pulling them out, but then my mother's guilt flushed through my system.
It was like I was throwing out part of Big E.
So I quickly returned it all to the closet.
Maybe I'll have the strength to do the purge another day. Probably a day when he is behaving horribly and I can symbolically throw out his artwork, while secretly wishing it was him.
This may or may not make the cut.
I, too, have the same problem. I have everything Bella did in Kindergarten in a bag on top of a shelf. I need to go through it - but can't bring myself to do so!
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