As of this moment, I can officially say that ALL OF THESE BOOKS SPARK JOY (to G):
(I’m kidding, mostly. I just have um . . .memories of certain kids choosing those books night after night and I find it SO HARD to read those non-linear kinds of books when you’re tired, which I basically always was at bedtime when the kids were that age. I will get over myself.)
Now, are they organized? No. But historically that lasts about 30 seconds anyway so I’m not entirely sure I feel called to spend the time doing that. I actually have no idea if this is a low, medium, or high number of books for an 8-year-old, but I’m going to go with “medium.”
There are board books aimed at toddlers in there (they still sparked joy . . .) and books handed down from A/C that she hasn’t read yet, though she also declined to keep some of those.
ANYWAY, her “non-sparking-joy” picks are now in the garage so they are not quite out of the house but they are close.
This project took ~1.5 hours over about 3 days. Admittedly there are about 300 projects of this scope in the house (okay maybe not 300, but many). I am still planning on involving a professional (I have failed too many times without one).
(Side note for anyone dissecting the contents of her shelves: her reading (fluency & comprehension) abilities are actually excellent now — though learning to read was definitely a journey, and took a little extra time and attention. I think her taste in reading material definitely skews a little young, which is totally fine with me. For now, I would rather her be happy reading what she wants than try to push!)
Winter Break Week 2: A Brief Analysis
POSITIVES:
Only A was sick (and she got better pretty quickly). Despite travel and so many viruses going around! I don’t want to think about what this might mean for the next couple of months, but hey — at least our time off was mostly healthy time off.
I had time to set up my planner and finalize annual goals. Yay!
We had a nice NYE despite Josh working.
I had a couple of really nice walks outside in good weather. C had a soccer practice (he’s doing a 5v5 game with old soccer friends even though he is not currently on any official team) and he had a great time. I am enjoying my reading life lately.
NEGATIVES:
Umm, I don’t feel like we “did” very much and in some ways these days feel like a bit of a waste of (A LOT OF) precious PL time. Blah!
I do not love being home on vacation when Josh is on call for days on end (today is day 5). Note to self that if this situation arises in the future to consider some kind of trip with the kids.
I had fantasies of being super productive (particularly with home cleanup / decluttering / dealing with various backlogs that have accumulated since my call week / book launch / Montana mashup), but even though my kids are no longer toddlers underfoot, it’s very hard to be truly productive with them . . . well . . . underfoot. And everywhere else.
(ERGO: I need to let go of fantasies of extreme productivity during stretches of vacation! It would have been better to lean into a slothful and rest-filled existence, truthfully. Or just visit family.)
Next week: 2026 Goals, one domain at a time (well, show notes tomorrow. But after that!).
10 Comments
Great job on the book organization. I really need to go through ours. We have a lot of board books on our main floor and they rarely get read. I did go through the picture books in our 5yo’s room but we did not get rid of as many as I would have liked. Paul has limited storage in his room and the shelves are too short for picture books so he only has chapter books. We really could get rid of 1/2 our books. We use the library so much so don’t need as big of a collection of books. But they don’t take up all that much space so I let it go – for now!
I am glad you mostly had a good break. I don’t tend to take time off much at this time of year because our weather is pretty awful and travel doesn’t work due to my husband’s work schedule. I could go somewhere with the kids but don’t know that I want to until they are much older! But our kids have child care for about half of it so that helps and this year the younger nice spent a week with my parents. I wish the break was not 2 weeks. I think that is too long! I know it’s great for those who travel but less great for those who don’t. I think in 2 years the break is 8 days instead of 10 which I will much prefer!
I need to declutter my kids books. The tidy shelf is good inspiration.
I still have Cars and Trucks and Things That Go on my bookshelf! I loved (and still love) all things Richard Scarry, I have my original copy of Busy Busy World from Christmas 1980! Your shelves look great – this kind of decluttering is so satisfying. Also – Marie Kondo changed my LIFE back in 2016 or something like that, I love the “sparks joy” idea, also the “thanking an item for its service and letting it go to someone else.” Good luck with your big project!
So very jealous you will have your Richard Scarry. I have always believed that one day What Do People Do All Day will give me the solution to my life / career choices. (I’m 55 and still hopeful.)
We did a big kid book declutter this weekend as well. T has so, so many books, and is definitely happier to get rid of chapter books than picture books. Our chapter book read aloud is dragging so we’ve been reading a handful of picture books every night instead. I’m a library (both paper and ebook) reader so despite reading well over 100 books every year, I don’t have the same size collection.
I need to brave the toys this week – the house is getting photographed for sale next Tuesday and I just think it’ll be easier to keep clean for showings if there is less stuff. I asked T to tidy his room yesterday and I think he’s reached the point where it’s too higgeldy piggeldy to do it on his own – there were tears. We are also downsizing anyways, going from 3 beds + sunroom to two beds + office so it’s worthwhile doing now. We took a car load to the recycling centre and got rid of a filing cabinet, side table, and a piano bench via freecycle this weekend.
TOYS are going to be a lot harder than books. (Maybe I should just procrastinate another 5 years or so for this category and then no one will care about toys . . .)
I do a bin for library books! Easier to visually sort for my kids. Congrats on your decluttering project. Always feels good to have a win 🙂
I feel this IN MY BONES: I need to let go of fantasies of extreme productivity during stretches of vacation! It would have been better to lean into a slothful and rest-filled existence, truthfully.
I’ve decided to reframe that this was their break and I needed to honour that. I still got some things done, but not nearly as efficiently as I would have liked 😉
My husband is itching for us to declutter kid books; our youngest is 4 and is fluently reading graphic novels (please don’t take this as a brag, just an indication that we need to get rid of the young stuff – my 8 year old daughter is like G and needed quite a bit of extra help to get there). And yet, I don’t think I’m emotionally ready to get rid of the picture books all 3 have read and loved! I will definitely be keeping “Goldbug” as we call it in our house – one of my all-time favorites! Maybe Richard Scarry preferences are a personality test of sorts?
Even though G is super fluent she still wanted to keep like, Elephant and Piggie books. So I don’t think there’s much correlation four some kids on what they can read and what they want to have in their libraries!
And haha, finding Goldbug was kind of cute. I will allow that 🙂 But also I’m really bad at finding things like that so often we would get stuck . . .