It Could Always Be Worse

As I’ve mentioned in previous entries, in June of 2007 my grandparents moved out of their three-story, seven-bedroom house where we lived since 1988. Some stuff they put in their new apartment, some in storage, some they sold or gave away to friends and family, and the rest was sent to me. Three decades of my possessions plus too many decades of their possessions was not going to fit into my one-story, three-bedroom house, especially with a baby on the way, so I put much of it in storage. Most things were more childhood memories, like old dolls, toys, music boxes, etc. Some was furniture, such as my bedroom furniture, and bits and pieces I was able to use immediately. The rest I decided to save for when DD was older and could use the various items, or when I needed a full-size bed in a larger house. Considering the fact that we were already already using Cheshire's room for storage, and his room was going to be converted into the nursery, we finally signed a contract to rent an off-site storage unit.

After visiting a friend’s house a month or so ago and seeing how she had large sheets of paper up on magnetic or corkboards for her toddler to color on, I decided to do something similar and put up some construction paper I had on the closet door in the den. DD almost immediately tore it off, so I knew I needed to get my large easel paper I had left over from my teaching days, along with any other educational supplies I could gather. I also wanted to get my old step stools out (items sent from my GPs) so DD could easily crawl into her bed and mine. I finally got over to the storage unit and crawled over our Christmas tree box to get to one of my numerous teaching boxes, only to discover that the items I pulled out were beyond damp, and some even had mold on them, which I was then able to smell as well. The next day I gathered the family and the manager and began to pull out DH’s and my numerous boxes of books, memorabilia, furniture, holiday decorations, everything you would keep in a storage unit. Basically, if it was on the ground and in a cardboard box, it was wet and most likely mildewed. Luckily the bed frame, which was my mother’s, just had water spots, but the mattress was stained as well. Posters DH created in high school, a box of his World Book Encyclopedia’s and science books were damaged, sweaters grandmothers made for dolls have spots, along with notes reminding me who made what are now stuck to faces and clothes. What really made me upset was when I discovered DD’s first Christmas cards. Some of them were so soaked that I couldn’t even open them to take pictures so she at least has something to look back on. The first photo DH and I had taken of each other at FAO Schwarz was barely salvageable, with just a bit of mold on the back, but the perfect frame it was in is now in the dumpster, along with much of our childhood. It could have been extremely worse, as in we could have lived in the path of Katrina, but it was still sad to see things I thought I’d always have, and one day be able to share with DD, destroyed. On the plus side, I cleaned some old plastic toys with bleach, which I probably wouldn’t have bothered to do otherwise. Of course, they’re probably made with BPA plastics and lead paint.