Collections

Casia is the type of person who likes to collect. She received two Carebears when she was about two years old and for the next few years, her goal was to collect them all; she came close. She was given a Webkinz a couple years later and the same obsession overtook her. If she has the first in a book series that she likes, she wants the whole set, even after she no longer reads that series (i.e. The Magic Treehouse). 

Usually this is a frustrating characteristic for a parent. I have to constantly curtail her collecting to avoid hording. It's always a struggle because she becomes emotionally attached to things. And they can be ridiculous things to want to save. She once kept the plastic shrink wrap from an Easter egg for more than two years (the egg had long since been eaten). When I throw out old craft projects that are broken she gets upset. Casia has been brought to tears when she outgrows clothes and they have to be donated.

I hate clutter myself, because I find it visually distracting and mostly, because I hate to dust. The less things there are the quicker the dusting goes. So between us, there are many battles about the state of her bedroom and the contents of her closet (which, although it it technically a 'walk-in', you can never actually walk in it.) I have to admit that in the last year, she has gotten better at discarding old things or giving away items she no longer uses. She is still upset when it's time to remove old clothing from her closet to make way for the new, but she accepts it begrudgingly.

Now every once in awhile, this obsession of hers actual makes my life easier. For instance, we are currently studying Colonial America and she found this series of books in the library, the America the Beautiful state books. They are not actually 'colonial' books, but the first half of each book gives the history of that state complete with the natives peoples, early settlers and all sorts of other cool and interesting details. We checked the Pennsylvania and New Jersey out of the library because I wanted her to to get the feel for the colonies other than Virginia and Massachusetts; colonies on which we'd already spent a lot of time. She likes them so much, she now wants to read all thirteen books from the states that were the original colonies. I told her she could skip the ones that we'd already covered, but she wants to read ALL of them. She is even talking about reading all fifty of them as she learns about them entering into the union. I had thought she'd balk at having to read so many similar books, but I wasn't counting on her need to complete a set. Having started, she is diligently working her way through the collection. It's always good to be reminded that even negative personality traits can have their plus sides.