I Found These Super Cute American Girl Doll Storage Containers, and I Am Definitely About To Have a Mid-Life Crisis

Because the best way to spend a rainy, gloomy afternoon is sitting on the floor all by myself playing with organizing the kids' old toys!

A few weeks ago, I had a little time to kill after dropping my kid off at college and before starting on the 4-hour hike home, so I decided to stop in Columbus, Ohio, and do some shopping in the Big City.

I mean, not like Nordstrom/Macy's/Sephora shopping. I mean World Market/Container Store/LEGO Store shopping!

In the Container Store I found these super cute American Girl doll-sized latching plastic containers, and they are the perfect size to store all the little sets of American Girl doll accessories. Look at all those tiny baking and picnic supplies, all organized in their adorable wee bins!

I didn't buy enough to hold all of the millions of miscellaneous accessories that my younger kid, especially, has for her American Girl doll, but here are similar mini containers on Amazon that you can buy in bulk, so I might stock up.

Of course, I'm the only one who's touched the kids' American Girl dolls in years, and then it's only been to lovingly wash all their little clothes and wipe the dust off their little faces and brush out their hair and gently nestle them into the bigger storage bins that I selected and bought for them. That was... rough, honestly. Transforming the kids' old playroom into the teenager's bedroom required that I once and for all put away a lot of their childish things, and doing that whole remodel right after sending my older kid away to college was probably not the best timing for me, emotionally.

Like, yay for the kids being ready and happy for all the growing up that they're doing, but I was pretty happy reading books and baking cakes and stomping in the creek with my four- and six-year-olds, thank you very much. I'm not entirely sure what I'm meant to do after this younger kid leaves for college really soon. Get a full-time job, sure. Do some DIY projects around the house. Learn to crochet. But, like... what am I MEANT to do? 

With these kids, I always knew exactly what I was meant to be doing. Raise them. Make play dough for them. Take them on adventures. Cook themed family dinners. Buy them matching pink Converse and purple Dr. Martens and spiky orange backpacks. Take them on picnics. Get them a cat. Get them a dog. Send them to summer camp. Coo over their art projects. Raising these kids has literally been my life's purpose for nearly twenty years. 

Those backpacks, though!!!

And now what? I just... semi-retire? I send them care packages and text messages and letters, take them on summer vacations and fuss over them during winter breaks? And what about the other 23.5 hours in the day? I'm simply... doing whatever? What else is even meaningful TO do?!?

Y'all, I'm pretty sure I am ramping up for the BIGGEST MID-LIFE CRISIS THAT EVER CRISISED. Like the most slowest-motion car wreck ever, I can see it coming, but I do not have a clue how to stop it. So, start popping the popcorn, I guess, because I feel like things may get wild around here in a few months...

P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, road trips to weird old cemeteries, looming mid-life crisis, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!