My Stuffed Animal Hoarders

Once upon a time, there was a little girl who had a rough childhood.  She muddled her way through many disappointments and hardships, without a lot of her innocence in tact.  Of her entire childhood, she can only really remember receiving one new toy as her own–her trusty, semi-soft, stuffed pink bear bought for her 6th birthday by her parents at the nearby discount store.  This bear survived so many terrible times, as did the little girl, and they clung to each other through it all.

Fast forward to another rough point in her life as she endured years of infertility.  She would still cling to that bear at times, wishing and praying for a miracle….just hoping that her bear would sit proudly in the room of her future daughter one day, looking out for her as she had for her Mom all of these years.  And finally, she and her husband are blessed with not one, but two, baby girls to add to their family.  What an amazing miracle, and she gets to pass on her beloved teddy bear which she lovingly preserved for so long!

Perhaps the little girl with one special stuffed animal developed a soft spot for her kids to have lots of “lovies” to make them feel warm and safe at night.  Alas…she finds herself buying them whatever stuffed friends brought smiles to their faces.  Friends, aunties, grandparents…everyone wants to give a little girl a cute stuffed animal to love, right?  Well, those gifts add up, my friends.  And now…the little girl with the one stuffed bear has created within her household two stuffed animal hoarders.

The thing is…my girls are like me in that they attach emotion and memories to their stuffed amigos.  They know each one by name and they interact with them as if they have real personalities and life stories.  It’s the sweetest thing to me!  You see…these friends are there for them when their friends at school are mean, or even when they are not getting along with each other.  Their stuffed friends never leave them lonely and they never let them down.  How can I be expected to force them to part with their most trustworthy comrades?

Well…around the time they hit five years old, the girls’ shared room became overly crowded and cluttered as a direct result of…you guessed it…the residence of too many stuffed tenants.  They would have to learn the life lesson that we all eventually learn…sometimes we have to say goodbye to those we love (dagger plunges into heart dramatically). So I devised a plan and I truly believe it has helped them learn to embrace the process of “cleaning house”:

1. The first step was to create a new rule for the house…There can only be as many stuffed animals as there are open spots on their shelves.
2. Next, their father and I taught them a lesson on being sacrificial.  We wanted to help them realize that there were less fortunate children in the world who maybe didn’t have any stuffed friends, and we could donate some of ours to charities that would find them a good home.
3. Then, after the initial parting of some of their stuffed friends (we would start with 3), we will periodically go through our friends to see who could be sent on a quest to find another child that needed them.
4. Finally, and this is the kicker…NO NEW STUFFED FRIENDS without saying goodbye to an old one.  So for every new lovey that was gifted to them, they would have to sacrifice a current polyester playmate.

Note: This plan works for other toys, books, clothing, and pretty much anything else that kids (and adults) can accumulate.

I am happy to report that our entire family has embraced this process!  At the beginning, it was tough and there were a lot of tears.  They would speak frequently of missing their friends, and they would try to convince me to bring them back.  Sometimes, if they are gifted a new friend, they opt to give it away in order to protect the ones they still have and love.

And now, three years later, we have reached a new phase of this process…they are down to the ones that they truly and deeply love.  Even I love some of them…like Stripes, the adorable tiger that Isabella got to help her be brave before a scary surgery.  Or India’s baby lamb that her grandma bought her when we first moved away.  Maybe the hard thing is that letting go is just so finite.  We will never see them again (dramatic hand placed against forehead).

I’m thinking about adding one more step to the anti-hoarder plan.  I will create a scrapbook for each of them to insert individual pics of their special friends and stories about them.  This way, when it’s time to let go, they will keep the memories of them.  I think this will soften the blow for all of us and help them to move forward, not clinging to everything as if their very lives depend upon nothing ever changing in their stuffed animal world.

It’s going to be a difficult process for them to continue to let go of these cherished treasures, but I think that over time, they will grow out of the need to keep so many.  We will see how it all goes, but only time will tell.  In fact, I never let go of mine. 🙂