Throw some (poop) away

Before I suggest an activity today, I want to share this piece of conceptual art my son produced the other day. He is four years old, and as such, poop is one of his favorite things to talk about.

In this masterful drawing, he has combined visual representation of poop with text in a chaotic, yet repetitive way. His innovation in this piece heavily references Jean Michel Basquiat and perhaps even other users of the Fisher Price Magnadoodle. His future in the artworld is surely bright, although his choice to go monochromatic in this piece is questionable, but we’ll look forward to seeing more from him.

Speaking of things that go down the toilet… My old roommate and I used to have an activity that we called “Liberation through Clothing Donation”. As much as we hated dealing with cleaning out our closets, we loved the feeling of moving that bag of undesirable clothes out of our bedrooms and dropping it off at the GoodWill.

For the past few years, Heather has hosted a Clothing Swap, which enables us to go through each other’s bags before hitting the women’s shelter where we now donate our clothes.

And then, I learned about the 27-Fling Boogie. This is a phrase that comes from the FlyLady, who is an online trainer of housewives and househusbands. If you don’t have a housecleaner or nanny, you should definitely explore her site.

If you just want to feel good in about twenty minutes, try her suggested activity:

As fast as you can, take a garbage bag and walk through your home and throw away 27 items. Do not stop until you have collected all 27 items. Then close the garbage bag and pitch it. DO NOT LOOK IN IT!!! Just do it.

Next, take an empty box and go through your home collecting 27 items to give away. This will change the energy in your home and bring about good feelings. Every time I do this I feel better and my home is becoming decluttered in the process. As soon as you finish filling the box, take it to the car. You are less tempted to rescue the items.

Rule of thumb: if you have two of any item and you only need one, get rid of the least desirable.

Friends, you know this would be a better way to spend a nap than Internetting. And I know where to start with my purging – my makeup bag and jewelry box. What the hell am I storing in there? Quite a few things that qualify as trash.

I usually get stuck after a few items because of the whole reuse/recycle thing. So here’s my updated plan: First, throw 27 things in a bag or laundry basket. Then sit with them and sort them amongst the garbage, recycling, donation piles. You don’t want to lose momentum as you FLING unwanted items into your bag with thoughts of “How can I throw away a perfectly good bottle of lotion that I will never ever use because it smells like grapefruit and I hate grapefruit-smelling things?”

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Whitney

RookieMoms.com co-founder Whitney lives with her husband, son, and daughter in the San Francisco Bay Area where she writes about parenting, crafts, and activities that moms can do with babies in tow. She and Heather also publish 510Families.com, a site for East Bay parents.