Back in 2007, hubby and I knew that we would probably be moving within a few years. (We did…in 2009.) Since we had already moved eleven times in ten years, and lost some things that were important along the way, I decided to pack up some of the more sentimental items so that 1) they would not be lost, and 2) so they would be out of the way while I went through the non-precious stuff and got rid of the junk.
I was meticulous about labeling. It is so frustrating to look for something you packed away, only to be confronted with a scene like the warehouse at the end of Indiana Jones and the Lost Ark. So I started with box #1, put the date February 8, 2007 at the top, and listed what was in it. The first box was easy. I had a small collection of “Princess of the World” Barbie dolls. I had dreams of them being a “special toy” I might sometimes let my children play with, under supervision. My oldest was eight at the time. She had no interest in Barbies, and was the kind of child who would have quickly scattered every piece to the four winds, never to be found again.
Fast forward to 2014, and we have about twenty boxes in our basement. Genealogy material, diplomas, and other things that hold sentimental value but don’t necessarily need to be out and accessible on a daily basis. They’re still boxed because our house is a never-ending fixer-upper. These things might just stay in the boxes until we move back to Colorado someday.
Last week, my younger daughter mentioned she wanted more Barbie dolls to go with the few she has. I remembered that I had the princesses, and I went to look for the box.
Thanks to OCD labeling, it was easy to find and easy to take out of the pile.
Then I looked at the date.
February 8, 2007.
Nine months before my youngest daughter was born.
Hubby and I tried for ten and a half years to get pregnant. After many different treatments, it finally worked in mid February, 2007.
Today, I gave my daughter the princess dolls. I watched happily as she reverently pulled each one out of the box, eight in all. I told her that these used to be Mommy’s, but they are now hers. She can play with them however she wants. Daddy helped her unpackage them all (quite a challenge) and she immediately began organizing them. She put the play passports and other papers that came with each one into a small box, and removed the stands from each doll. I have her a plastic bin designed for daily medicine, and she took each princess’ shoes off and neatly put them away. I’m not sure if the dolls are naked yet…I haven’t checked in the last half hour…
There are a lot of precious things in the basement, packed away in boxes. They say if you can go a year without using something, you probably don’t need to keep it. That’s good advice, and I know I’m a pack-rat by nature. For now, it puts my mind at ease knowing that the “important” stuff is safe. We have remodeling to do, and junk to sort out and throw away.
In the meantime though…I might take another look at these boxes, and see if there’s something else whose time will pass by as my kids grow up so fast.
AmyBeth Inverness 
What a wonderful story, thank you for sharing 🙂 as a life-long fan of Barbie, but without children of my own, I don’t know what I was more touched by – the fact you kept them so immaculately stashed away for all these years, or that your daughter seems to cherish them so delightfully. Such a small thing, but makes such a difference. I bet she’ll always remember this gift 🙂
Thank you!
I’m so glad that she not only loves them, but cherishes them!
After taking off their shoes and putting them away, she renamed them all after Disney princesses, labeling each with a post-it note lol!
That is hilarious and so sweet! 🙂 she’s one lucky girl, that one. I had only one Barbie when I was a child, and I think I would have considered selling my parents for such a treasure back then 🙂
You packed your prinesses, and made one, all at the same time- now that’s cool. And look how HAPPY! =)
From the age of 8, I collected Breyer’s horses. For years, they lived in my cedar chest, and then I saw an ad on a recycling list. A pair of homeschooled girls was looking for model horses.
I was pregnant for my second son. Today, as a matter of fact, is his birthday. He was to be our last child, so I thought I would never have a daughter of my own. I gave all the horses away.
Elijah died at 12 days old. Less than a year later, I was the mother of a little girl who grew up to – you guessed it! – love horses. And the models are gone, off to another life in another family. I don’t begrudge them…
But stories like this, that turn out just right…they soothe that tiny part of me that wishes I had saved at least one or two…
May you find more treasures, and may the delight of ownership and discovery fill your fixer-upper!
Happy birthday to baby Elijah, and hugs to you.
After a few years of infertility treatments, I took the rubbermaid tub (my version of a cedar chest) of baby things we’d collected and donated them to a local charity for new mothers.The social worker’s eyes went wide when she saw the tub…slightly smaller than a bathtub. I don’t begrudge those things either.
What I DO regret is that, even though we saved the size 1yo onsie of an STNG uniform I bought LONG ago at the Trek hotel in Vegas,when my daughter was 1yo we couldn’t find it lol! I have it put away where I can find it now. Hopefully we’ll adopt again someday, or maybe it will wait for a grandchild.
Thank you. Elijah’s birthday is – well, it is. Every year, it’s different. These twelve days are bracketed by my daughter’s birthday, and mine, and that’s a lot of emotional terrain, fraught with fault lines…
I love that you have a ST:TNG onesie – and, wait, there was/is a Trek hotel in Vegas?!
I hope you do get to snuggle a little one who’s wearing it! One question, though – what color will the wee bairn to be, if there is one, be sporting?
I would’ve had to go for Sciences blue…
I went back and checked…it’s still in the drawer, and it’s red.
The hotel closed a few years ago. Yes, it was Star Trek themed… a few blocks off the strip but it was a major chair (I forget which one)
I went to Vegas for a Scottish Dance Teacher’s convention with my mother. We took a little free time to go to “The Star Trek Experience.” The main attraction was a kinda live-action walk through. You start in an elevator-like thing with about 20 other people, then the lights go out and they do the “Oh no, something went wrong!” thing. They lead the group from one area to another, recreated to look like the Enterpirse D, with live actors playing random crewmembers who interact with (recordings of) the main characters who appear on the vid screen. It ended with a virtual reality ride where you’re in a shuttle that moves while the IMAX type screen in front of you shows the shuttlecraft eventually returning to present day Las Vegas. Very cool! The attraction let out into a gift shop area including Quark’s bar.
Red, eh….uh oh! Of course, that’s a less dangerous thing in NextGen, but, still….red….uh oh.
It sounds like it was a nifty hotel. I was in Vegas on either side of our wedding trip (we were living at the Grand Canyon, and flew back here to NY to get married).
The show might have been a little much (so was the airplane!) for an acrophobic like me. But fun, if you can handle that shuttle flight simulation.
Some years back ,I visited an exhibit on the science of Star Trek, and Jim and I saw a traveling exhibit of memorabilia – I think maybe in Canadian Niagara Falls, during our honeymoon (we’ve traveled kind of a lot, and things get jumbled in my head! It could have been somewhere on the West Coast, too…).
It’d be fun to visit Quark’s bar. =)
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