So I know this girl, her name is Ava and this girl named Ava likes to save every little thing. This girl named Ava is actually my eight-year-old daughter. I feel absolutely terrible for doing this, but when she is at school, I will go into her room and throw stuff out.
Does anybody else do this? I can’t be alone in this, right? Come on moms, please tell me you do this, too.
Some days it breaks my heart to throw out her drawings and doodles… but she doodles just so damn much! I couldn’t possibly save everything. Doodles and drawings aside, she also collects stuff — rocks, empty containers, rocks…did I say rocks? She has a thing for them lately. I hung up her coat the other day and it weighed waaay more than it should have. I unzipped her pocket and a handful of rocks fell onto my kitchen floor. She quickly ran over, scooped them up and headed to her bedroom. I think she knew that I would throw them out. I think at one point every kid has a rock collection, though.
Although, it did make me stop and think — is this more than just typical kid stuff or is my daughter headed for a life of hoarding? Because rock collections I can live with, but it was another incident that really had me asking myself some serious questions.
“Hey, what are you doing?”, she asked as if I had just ripped off her right arm.
“I am getting rid of the garbage”, I said. She told me next that she wanted to keep the Doritos bag. “I was saving that”, she said in the world’s saddest voice ever.
This was my face in that exact moment.


And you know what, I am going to use this as a learning opportunity. This is now a great thing that we can do together. Rather than just throwing the bag out and not paying attention to why she wanted it, I suggested to her that she and I could work through my craft room together. I let her know that she can help me with some of my DIYs and together we can work our way through some of the stuff we collect.
So, the next time you think your kid is doing something strange or weird, talk to them. You never know what is going on in their minds. They might just surprise you.
Besides, imitation is the greatest form of flattery.

Like mother like daughter!!! Both beautiful.
Thank you! 😀