Preparing for more with less

Life is about to get bigger here in our household. Any day now we are expecting the birth of our third child and we are all excited to meet him. The kids are super excited to have a little baby to cuddle and love on, I am ready to no longer feel like I have a giant watermelon attached to my torso.

I noticed a few weeks ago that I've been feeling like life is about to get a lot more complicated expanding to a family of five while living as expats in a beautiful city but without a car and family to call on whenever the need requires. I've never had to bring a newborn home and carry it up and down two flights of stairs any time we leave the house. We rely on public transport or our bikes as we don't own a car. It is very different to the comfy suburban life we had back in Australia.

After some thought I realised that a lot of this was not actually where my concerns lay, I know I would eventually adjust to whatever life looks like and that I could tackle it with confidence and the amazing support of my husband and the friends we've made here. I just felt like home life had become messy and cluttered. I had a lot of unfinished decluttering projects I'd started that I wanted to finish before we welcomed the baby into our home.

I had come across the minimalist lifestyle early last year and knew it was something we had to do after packing up our entire lives and moving it to the other side of the world without having had the time to pick and chose what we really needed and what would not suit our new lifestyle, having gone from a suburban home to a city apartment. Even though the space we have is similar, we no longer have a backyard, garage and car to keep extra stuff in. So after reading most of Marie Kondo's book and recently consuming as much of Allie Casazza's blog and podcasts as possible, I have been decluttering and minimising when I've had the chance for the past six months.

Recently I had to put a pause on my wardrobe decluttering after falling pregnant and have added quite a few pieces as the weather grew colder/warmer and my baby belly grew, but I was still able to get rid of all the unloved and over-worn pieces that were taking up space. My husband also downsized his wardrobe and loves having a smaller wardrobe. Yesterday I finished going through the kids worn or outgrown clothes and they have a much more manageable wardrobe filled with clothes that actually fit, filling up a huge IKEA bag of their old clothes. I did keep some boys clothes that were in good condition for our next little boy.

I removed garbage bags full of cheap and unloved toys before Christmas and did so again last week as we had my son's birthday this past week and my daughter's will be in July. I really don't know how we accumulated so much, it may have something to do with the two suitcases of the kids' Christmas gifts we brought back from our last trip to Australia! I was also a little embarrassed by the amount of happy meal toys we had lurking around, I guess those pregnancy cravings for fries have been stronger than I thought!

Overall I am happy with the amount of progress that has been made. My head feels clearer as I step into each room. Even if the toys don't get cleaned up off the living room floor at the end of the day, it is considerably less mess than there previously was. I know that the toys left out were all played with rather than just dumped onto the floor while looking for one specific animal figurine. I feel ready to welcome another little person into our lives, including all the "stuff" that comes with them.

xo