The 2nd hardest thing..

I always heard you will know when it is time..

Time to pack up Maddie's stuff...

But I always knew I was NEVER going to be ready.

Sunday morning I woke up after my baby shower and I felt like I needed to do it... put her stuff away.

I called my mom and asked her to come over and help. There was no way I could do it alone. If you remember I have not touched anything in her room. Dirty clothes were still on her changing table and clean clothes on her bed.

Could I do this? Was it time? Was I ready? Will I ever be?

I sat in Maddie's room crying, waiting for my mom to come over. I sat there thinking that it was time. It's time to start our new beginning. The major reason I needed to clean her room is for her brother....Mr. Hope. We are using her furniture in his room. So, I just kept thinking.... This is the start of our hope.... Maddie will always be a part of our family no matter if I move her stuff today or in 20 years. What am I waiting for? I'm ready for hope. I am ready for Mr. Jackson. I will always miss Maddie, but I am ready for her room to make me smile. So it was time.

When my mom got to our house, she asked me if I was ready. She knew I was crying. I said yes. So, I took pictures of every inch of her room. I took a lot of pictures. Probably way to many but I wanted to remember. I don't ever want to forget. Here are just some.


(Remember everything was just "dumped" in her room. So it is not very organized or picked up.. but I didn't want to move anything so I just started taking pictures..)

After taking pictures we started taking stuff out of her drawers. It was so hard. SO SO SO hard. At one point I really thought I was going to throw up.

How could I come this far? Over a year without her. Now I am cleaning out her room. I hated doing this. I kept texting Catherine and telling her how much I hated it. But it was time.

We started with her bow drawer.
The very drawer that I frequented every day. Also the same drawer that I almost had a panic attack in when I had to pick the bow our baby was going to be buried in. Putting away all her pretty bows hurt. It was real. She is really gone. I kept a few of my favorite bows to put in my jewelry box. I want to be able to look at them any time I needed or wanted to. I am so glad I made that decision. So far I love opening that jewelry box in the morning to put my jewelry on and seeing those beautiful bows. It makes me happy.

Mom and I went drawer to drawer until all of them were empty. Then we took her bedding off. A friend of Catherine's is making us a quilt out of Maddie's clothes and I decided to include her bedding. So we put all of that into a bag.

Next, we did the closet. I was really dreading this part. It was a sad trip down memory lane. Every outfit we took out I could remember her wearing. I remembered what we were doing and if I had a picture of her in that outfit. We picked some favorites and put them into the bag for the quilt...others I couldn't give up. The hardest part about going through her closet with seeing all the clothes she never got to wear. That hurt. Maddie had so many clothes with tags on them. Clothes even past 12 months. Clothes she will never wear. Clothes Jackson can't wear. It just hurt..BAD!!!

7 totes and many tears later we were done.

I did it. I packed away her stuff.

Her crib is still in there. We haven't moved in into our room yet, but everything else is put up.

I am going to keep some of her stuff on the wall and incorporate Jackson into her room.

It was hard....the 2nd hardest thing I never had to do. But, I did it. I am so lucky my mom was there to help. She was amazing and helped me through the whole thing.

I walked into Maddie's room (the playroom) on Monday and I was a little sad. It is going to take a while for me to get used to seeing her stuff gone and put away. One day I will smile in that room. I'm just not there yet.