Clothing dilemma

I am having organizing issues, which is not like me at all. I am known to be an organizing junkie.

But this time I can't get past this one issue of my children's clothes. More importantly, the ones they have grown out of.

Having 3 boys allows me the opportunity to keep their clothes and use them for the next boy in line. It hasn't always gone as well as I would have liked. For instance, the age difference between Taylor (my oldest) and Carson (the middle son) is 5 1/2 years. Styles change pretty rapidly and where Taylor wears more of a "preppy" style, Carson prefers comfortable sports attire if any clothes at all. And nothing has to match with Carson; I think he likes it better when it doesn't match. But he normally runs around the house in underwear even during these cold winter months. I don't get it.

Also, when I pull out the next size bin of clothes and look through them, I can't help but remember Taylor wearing these clothes and the memories of them. I want to keep those memories reserved for him. Other times the thought crosses my mind of, "what in the world was I thinking allowing my son to wear this particular shirt."

There haven't been a lot of clothes that have made it from Taylor to Luke (my youngest) as of yet. One main reason for that is because Carson wears his clothes out so fast. He has this really bad habit of chewing the neck of his shirts and coats. I've already had to throw out a handful due to holes being chewed through them. (Really, I do feed this child.) There are more shirts that I should throw out, such as his Bears jersey, but the costs of those are ridiculous so he's wearing it even though it looks like he was attacked by a bear - no pun intended.

I love to buy the kids new clothes, but at times feel guilty knowing I have bins of saved clothes for them. Taylor is the lucky one who gets all new clothes when he reaches the next size level. I used to get away with buying him cheaper shirts from Wal-Mart and such, but now that he's cool he could never be seen wearing anything without a brand name plastered across the front. His new favorite store is Abercrombie. Yuck. Just the thought of shopping in that store gives me a headache. Have you been in there? Have you even just walked past there? It's as if a rave party is going on. You can't carry on a conversation even if you wanted to. We stopped in last week to check out the clearance section since I'd have to take out a 3rd mortgage if I were to buy anything full price. I am using hand signals as if I'm trying to land an aircraft showing him to keep heading to the back of the store and the music just seems to keep getting louder. And the smell - oh my heavens, the smell of that place. They must wash their floors in cologne and the employees must bathe in it. It produces an instant headache. You could easily get away with farting in that store and no one would know. I'm just saying.

Taylor headed over to the wrong gender side of the store unknowingly and pointed at a cute sweatshirt that could have been for a boy. I try yelling that he's in the girls section. He can't hear me. So I resort back to hand signals and point up to the picture of a cute model girl and look back at Taylor. He nods as if he just got it and gives a cute 'oops' smile. This boy of mine could easily pass as an Abercrombie child model, he is a cutie pie. I'm not biased or anything.

But back to the dilemma before I get any more side tracked. I love being able to sort through Luke's clothes because the one's he has out grown, I put in my garage sale bins and put them up in the attic until our spring garage sale. But, the other boys are where the situation lies. What I have been doing is keeping a bin in each of the kids closets and I label it with what size clothes are inside so that when they grow out of something they (or really I should say I) can put it in the bin. Sounds simply enough, but we are to the point that the bins seem to be filling up too fast or I just need to start buying bigger bins. I hate to have more than 2 bins with the same size clothes inside.

The hard part comes into play when the boys are in between sizes and can go either way. Do I keep both sets of sizes in their working drawers and closet? No, I can't do that due to lack of space. Carson and Luke share a room and there's no way it could accommodate that amount of clothes. If the boys each had their own rooms I could possibly get away with it. What I really need is a basement or more storage space that is easily accessible. That would be nice. But that is also unrealistic at the moment.

Until then, do you have any suggestions? How do you organize your children's clothes? I need your ideas.