Oh, the joys of toys! Christmas is over, the new year has begun, and let me tell you, the girls made out like bandits this year! The toys started rolling in on Christmas eve and by the time Brian and I got home that night, we were a bit stressed. (I might have been in tears, but that’s probably more due to pregnancy hormones than to all the toys.) We already had a van full of new toys and it wasn’t even Christmas DAY yet!! What were we going to do with it all?!?!?
I knew the next day was just going to bring in MORE and I was stressed about it. The girls’ room was already full to the brim. I’d spent more hours than I wanted to count helping them organize and pick up only to have it looking like a tornado went through a day later. Don’t get me wrong…I appreciate all the gifts they’re given, but I was truly overwhelmed.
That’s when I made a plan.
We brought in only their two new favorite toys from the van on Christmas. M brought in a cute, giggling Elmo, and H brought in her new Fur Real Friend kitty. Everything else stayed in the van. The morning after Christmas, the girls and I boxed up ALL their old toys.
FIVE boxes full. We talked about how we weren’t getting rid of them, but that they were moving to the basement to make room for the new toys. They were totally okay with that and willingly helped. We worked until their room was completely empty. The only things left were their books and blocks. And the blocks were only left because I forgot to box them up.
I carried it all to the basement.
Then, we brought in the new toys. And you know what? It was totally reasonable! They now have a doll house with lots of furniture, two dolls with lots of clothes to dress them in, a dress up box, a couple puzzles, and some other small toys. They’re not bored in the least, in fact, each morning, they seem to find something new to play with. This morning, they pulled out their My Little Ponies that were in their stockings. They hadn’t played with them since Christmas morning, so it was like they were totally new!
They’re complaining less too because they can actually FIND the toys that they have. Since there are really just a few different things to play with, it’s easy to clean up making it easier to find other toys to play with. They’re also playing NICELY more often! They’ll each have a toy or two and then they’ll play hide and seek or “shopping” or “midwife” for a long time. It just seems that as their life is less cluttered, they’re happier.
So what’s the plan from here?
No, I don’t want those boxes staying in my basement forever. That’s not part of purging! But it worked for us because H is extremely sensitive and gets upset very easily if she realizes her toys are being given away. (We had a garage sale last summer…she wasn’t a happy camper.) So I decided to take them all to the basement and then go through them on my own at sometime soon. I’ll give away a lot of them and then organize the others to be on a rotation. When they quit playing with the My Little Ponies or the dollhouse, they’ll go away and something else will come out.
My goal is to get down to the toys that are in the room and two (small) boxes in the basement.
I just keep reminding myself of what a happy childhood Laura Ingles Wilder had…with very few toys! My girls are not going to suffer from this. They won’t be missing out on anything. And my hope is that they’ll learn to live neat, orderly lives at a young age. That’s HUGE!
Here’s what their room looked like this morning.
We probably spent five minutes picking up last night (as opposed to the half hour it used to take) and they woke up and instead of whining, found something to play with. They’re happy, and I’m happy! Now on to the next room…
So are you taking this journey to less mess with me? Where did you begin?
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STILL working on the downstairs family room; the grandkids’ toys are a part of it, and I’ve put a FEW of them in the donation box… I really should put a few more in as I work today.
My goal is to have a family room again instead of a junk room, so that as our family GROWS with more grandchildren, we will have more room for everyone! And the children can go downstairs to play along when they want to ~~ it won’t just be Grandma’s junk room!
Glad you’re still working on it and haven’t given up!! The kids will be THRILLED with Grandma’s lack of junk! 🙂
That is great! We are bringing our first child home from overseas in a few months. I am trying to get rid of some of my husband’s and my clutter to make way for little boy things 🙂 Maybe a year from now, I’ll be working on toy de-clutterling, too!
Looking good. You won’t see many toys at our garage sales either. I have to box them up in the night (only the most unfavorites of course) and then drive to a thrift store we will never shop at to donate. Because seeing your favorite toy at a thrift store while shopping is a VERY traumatic event. (Lesson learned on that one.) We talk about the possibility of selling things and earning money for them so the kids can buy what they really want, but it may be awhile yet.
Oh no!! They saw their toy at a thrift store! Trauma! 🙁
Yeah, I’m hoping when they get older, they’ll be okay with selling outgrown things to buy new things. It’s such a good lesson to learn! 🙂
You sound just like me … many years ago when our kids were small, we did those same things and found that our kids loved it and then enjoyed bringing some of their older toys back to play with every so often. You soon find out which are the best and the favourite toys.
making room for the new is what my mom always said she also always said don’t take life so serious let them be kids they love to change up the routine in life and so should we
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This post is inspiring me to go and clean out some clutter! Thanks 🙂
Glad it is inspiring to you!! 🙂 Thanks for stopping by!
this is so smart. My children are just a bit older, but we need to do this. You are inspiring me!
I’m glad you’re feeling inspired!! I can’t wait to get into another area of the house, but we’ve been so busy… I’ll get back to it Monday!