together, chancellor and i make a hoarder. not the animal kind or the dirty adult diaper kind, but the shopping bag kind. i do the buying, he does the shoving of the purchase (still in it's bag) into any closet space available. i look for the purchase later, when ready to use, and inevitably end up buried in a closet full of . . . bags of purchased things. i then become overwhelmed after looking through only two or three bags and finding things i had purchased (and repurchased) that had been missing for months, close the closet door and... go to the store to repurchase the unfound item. along with a few other things i need. just to be brought home. and stuffed. in a closet. to be lost. and repurchased. again.

we are working on our issues.

tlc will NOT be making a visit to our house to help us work through those issues.

i spent my day off last week going through irie's closet. she slept in our room (in her own crib) for the first (almost) year of her life. eventually, she started taking to pelting anything within her small reach at my closed eyes, and she had to move into her own room. that room had been designated the guest/craft tomb room. yes, craft tomb. the place where all of the ideas i had, for a split second, been obsessed with, go to die. along with the shopping bags. i might show you a picture of this room, if i had taken one. i was afraid, though, that the closet might eat my camera, and i don't like unflattering pictures anyway, so there is no actual evidence of the hoarding. unless you talk to people who have lived it. and they only discuss that horrifying experience with their therapists, so that information is privileged.

oh wait... cat's out of the bag.

anyway, i spent thursday clearing out the closet (and you would not believe the number of index cards, notebooks, graph paper, and pens i have. or how many gone-forever-cute-baby-girl-clothes opportunities with the tags still on i came across. seriously.) and this process took FOR-EVER. not because i was having any problem going through it, but because although cohen had once played with all the toys i found in the closet (at length, i might add), the "baby toy discovery 2011" must have struck a nostalgic chord, and he insisted upon pulling each toy out and playing with it again. irie followed suit because she thinks her big brother is obviously the smartest, most fabulous person on the planet and, of course, all of the pretty colors and sounds. i do believe she said "woooow!"

yesterday, chancellor was at work, cohen was visiting his daddy, and while irie was asleep, i had full reign of that room and was able to go through each bag, each set of craft supplies, each piece of mail, undisturbed. no one was there to say "OOOH MYYY GOOOD MOMMY THANK YOU SOOO MUCH FOR BUYING ME THIS NEW TOY 3 YEARS AGO WHEN I WAS ONLY AN INFANT, IT'S THE BEST RATTLE EVER!!! !!! !!!" or "age, seriously, do you NEED that? like, in that quantity?" or "mommy, bottle," while pointing to her dirty diaper with her "stinky" face. i was able to organize it in a neat and easy-to-find bagless fashion. and THROW AWAY random ass crap no one has any business keeping anyway. yay. first step to recovery.

and today!! we handed that room to it's rightful owner, and boy was she excited to play in it! i suck, and have no pictures, because i wanted it to be cute and clean and organized and, as she learned thursday, irie pulled out every single toy, to play with all at once. i'll get them up very soon though, because it's seriously cute. and bag free.