Bins, Bins and More Bins

I thought I would write this post to encourage myself and anyone out there reading this with little ones.
I spent several hours Saturday going through 15 bins of children's clothes. I started this endeavor to get ready for a consignment sale, never anticipating how emotionally draining the task would be. That sounds a little extreme I am sure, but the process caused me to struggle on a number of levels.
First, the decision to add more children to our family was thrown in my face the entire day. I want more so badly, but I just don't feel a peace that wisdom would have us go down that road. We are almost 100% sure if we decide to expand our family it will be through adoption and yes that process has a huge list of questions associated with it. I won't go into those now, that is a post in itself. But, hypothetically if we answer all those questions and the outcome is yes we want to adopt then that leaves me with, "am I really equipped to have more children." If that answer is yes, then what age do we feel is ideal for the children we adopt. More than likely they will not be infants, which is partly my choosing. But there is another part of me that literally tears up every time I think I will never hold another one of my own little babies in my arms. Hence, the emotional issues sorting through tub after tub of clothes. As I was trying to part ways with their little articles of clothes all I could think of were the memories of my dear ones in those outfits. The outcome at the end of 12 hours of sorting was I could only send one box to consign and the rest are heading back to the basement to Cory's strong protest. So all that said, my advice and encouragement is get a bin to put in each child's closet. Get rid of anything that has a stain and each time they out grow something put it in there and when the tub is full label it with the appropriate items and then never sort through it again until you're pulling it out to put on that sweet new addition to your family. Or, when you are not looking have your husband haul them away for people who will actually put them to use before they are completely outdated. These solutions will help you avoid a long day of boring sorting and emotional melting.