Following 30+ days of non-stop togetherness, my husband and I suddenly find ourselves alone.  It is eerily quiet in the house, much more so than during the girls’ previous trips without us.  The fact that we spent so much time in one another’s company on a daily basis – for one month no less – makes Chloe’s and Sophie’s absence all the more glaring.

I actually find myself missing them more than usual.  Only slightly more, mind you.  The quiet is actually kind of nice.  And we were able to accomplish something today that we would never be able to manage if the girls were at home.

It turns out that our youngest daughter is a bit of a hoarder.  Sophie collects everything she touches.  Nothing gets thrown away, except under extreme duress.  We hadn’t dealt with her bedroom in a very long time.  My husband had the brilliant idea to tear it apart this afternoon.  And we did.  We sorted her clothes (our cousins from Brooklyn will be receiving another batch of gently used apparel when we see them in a couple of weeks), and more important, sifted through every drawer.

Three clothing bags later and three garbage bags later, her room miraculously seems much larger now than it did a mere four hours ago.  Will Sophie notice the difference upon her return?  Will she cry when she realizes that she no longer has her scraps of paper, her light-up balls that no longer light up, her broken jewelry boxes, her tangled costume necklaces, her torn princess crown?  Tune in next weekend to find out…