Contents of my daughter's craft drawers

We set up these craft drawers, the cheapiest, crappiest IKEA unfinished pine kind, to help A manage her extreme anxiety at having a younger sister who was getting into all her stuff. They come complete with top of the line magnetic locking system, the fancy kind that unlocks using a magnet stuck to the frige). A used to take great delight in locking the magnet in the drawer and then asking B to open them for her. A was wise enough not to ask me, knowing that involving me in any fine motor, technically-minded tasks quickly deteriorates into cursing, swearing, and throwing of relevant or random objects.

So the craft drawers took on kind of a mythical significance for A...a holy sanctuary where she could store tiny beads, stickers, jewelry, fake tattoos and all manner of objects special to a preschool girl.

Here's the thing. She has not touched these drawers in about 7-8 months, give or take. She now has a big girl school desk, and these drawers have sat, unlocked, unloved and unused in a corner of our living room.

So...my first thought: we should get rid of them. But then the panic sets in: what if she misses them, what if they fit perfectly in some nook or cranny of our new place.

Leaving that paralyzing dilemma aside for a moment, I decide to sort through them.
A sampling of items I found inside:

• 1 cheddar bunny
• 4 Hello Kitty tattoos
• 7 or 8 sheets of glittery alphabet stickers given by my mom who's trying to encourage A to read.
• A souvenir of the Olympic torch relay last December.
  
• 3 matchbox cars including the prized Lightning McQueen
• A Lightning McQueen Pez dispenser
• 5 creepy Chinese opera model masks from a work trip I took to Beijing in 2008
• A baby food jar whose entire contents were 3 Lego gold doubloons
• a sock (of course! I just threw out about 30 single socks, most of which I have now found in random places around the house)
  
• teeny tiny erasers
• A pin from Dirty Dancing containing the quote: 'I carried a watermelon?'
  
• More color wonder markers than I care to think about

And the pièce de résistance: An immense number of plastic melt beads, which at one point had been carefully sorted, by colour, into small ziplocs bags, only 3 of the bags had spilled, leaving a pile of pink, blue and green beads mixed together on the bottom of the drawer. I attempted to lovingly sort them....an attempt that was short lived. Remember what I was saying earlier about fine motor tasks? I HATE melt beads with a deep and abiding passion. I can't seem to pick them up and when I do, I invariably place them on the board in the wrong place and then knock off the other ones while I'm taking them off...you get the idea.

In fact, it was while I was sorting them that I thought, gee, what else could I be doing right now? Oh yeah, blogging about this miserable task! Which is what lead to this post..

In other news, part 1: our PODS has landed and is now sitting in glowing white ugly splendour on our driveway. The charming delivery guy who dropped it off suggested we decorate it for Hallowe'en. This idea is too inspiring to ignore.

In other news, part 2: My dad is now at our new place painting away. He was nice enough to say that it was bigger than our very first house, a 900 sq. ft. brick row house. But then he added 'But you know, this place really is a lot smaller than where you are living right now.'

In other news part 3: Thanks for your input, dilemma du jour #1 has been resolved. I (threw out) re-homed some of the smaller items (Barbie jewelry, single shoes, a truly hideous see through plastic raincoat) and some of the scary Barbies (one with a short uneven haircut, one with pink hair) and have kept a selection which will likely be given at Christmas. I think. We'll see.