Saturday, January 09, 2010

We're not a Toy Store

So I am looking across my living room floor and the words "lived in" don't describe it so much as "worked over by toddler cyclone". As of this morning, you would be hard pressed to make your way from any entrance into the room to any seat without stepping on something or narrowly missing something and almost killing yourself.

I've been toying with the idea of toy relocation for awhile now. The majority of Layla's toys have been taking residence in our common living areas because previously she's been too young to play upstairs unattended. Now that she's getting older and another baby will soon need to have some living room space of it's own...well... it's time for a migration north, or at least up the stairs.

Today while Layla napped I dumped every toy in the living room on to the floor. I took a small canvas tub and placed it in the corner and I started sorting. Most of her toys now live upstairs in the toy chest (which was relocated) her favorite toys now live in the corner. The downstairs toy population can be summed up as things a two year old can pick up and put away before bedtime which do not drive Mommy nutso.

The upstairs is now over populated with toys and at some point when I regain my energy and motivation there will have to be an upstairs overhaul. As it is I threw away a bag of junk toys today and I know there is more where that came from. Eventually, I'd like Layla's creative play to be uninterrupted by trying to dig things out of the bottom of a box. I'd also like to think that it would be easier for her to play if she could actually see and remember what she owns.

But, who am I kidding? This is really a post about how I am finally nesting and I really want to throw things away and the things that were first on that list are the ones that stab me in the feet on the way to the kitchen in the middle of the night.

Official notice- happy meal toys make me unhappy, dollar store and dollar bin stuff can be thrown away at a moments notice and I am no longer willing to keep every plastic dime store novelty that gets sent this way...plastic fishing pole with tiny candy canes that get stuck in the vacume... I'm looking at you.

1 comment:

Mel said...

AMEN!!! I did the purge of toys before going to Cali for Christmas and I am SOOOO glad I did!!!