Freaking Pack Rat!!!

I swear our daughter will be featured on one of those hoarder shows someday. No, that's probably not fair. She doesn't amass huge quantities of things, although if you lined all of her plastic dolls up end to end you might be inclined to disagree with me. Her particular form of hoarding is to find a particularly attractive (to her) container and then load it up with all of the crapola that she can find.

The things she loads her buckets with are her treasures and woe to the person that tries to cull through them to throw away errant boa feathers, dried out chapstick, and tissues. Right now we have the following active vessels, and I swear these are the actual names that we refer to them by. Ana would back me up on this because if you lined them up and said one of their names, she would make a beeline straight for the container I was talking about. I'm realizing that I typed - said one of "their" names, instead of one of "its" names. I think that more than one person in our family has a problem... But, back to the names:

1. Bucket of Junk. This is the king of all containers. It is a plastic hatbox sized container with a helpful pink string, allowing it to be toted around like an oversized...bucket of junk. It has all of the makeup that she was given for Christmas, 4 tiaras, 4 plastic microphones, 5 boas, a wallet, 6 pretend rings, 4 bracelets, a Mr. Potato Head candy cane topper from Christmas, and two pens.

2. Barbie Bag. This is a Barbie case, that was once a Barbie makeup purse, given to Ana for Christmas. It has been repurposed as a container for many small plastic people. Right now it holds about 20.

3. The Shoe Goblet. A silver goblet that was given to Scott's dad as a sales award. No longer used as an award, it holds several of Ana's plastic dress up shoes. 'Cause that's where every girl keeps her shoes... in a goblet.

4. The newest addition - and my favorite - Scooter Bag. Ana TWO DAYS AGO got a little Tinkerbell scooter that comes with a handlebar pouch. She wasted no time in turning it into her latest holder of all things junky. It apparently also needed a contact case, because that's where I found mine this morning.

Bucket of Junk, Barbie Bag, Shoe Goblet, and Scooter Bag do not merely torment us with their trashiness, nay, they are treasured friends that must come with us everywhere. We cannot leave for school unless Bucket of Junk is on the seat next to us. God forbid Shoe Goblet is not next to our nightstand when we go to sleep at night.

We are considering a ban on containers of all types in our house because we have our hands full with these four. I shudder to think how much longer it would take us to get out of the house if we had to add one more to the mix!