Toy Story

Like many parents, my wife and I struggle with clutter. Having children effectively doubles the amount of crap you have in your house. To put the amount of toys in our house in perspective, last year I purchased a bin (something like this) to house some of the thousands of toys we have received and bought over the last 3+ years. First of all, no, the size of the bin is NOT an exaggeration. I think this is the exact one I bought and yes, it is meant for garden tools. Secondly, the “thousands of toys” are NOT an exaggeration either. No, we haven’t received and bought thousands of toys, but many of the toys have many pieces, so when you add them all together, thousands is an accurate number.

To put our clutter into further perspective, the bin isn’t even close to big enough to hold all the toys. And these are just the ones that are actually in the play area, not counting the ones that are strategically hidden in closets upstairs. The “play area” will be defined as the 3 room area including our great room, living room, and another room which I will call the play room (the room that houses the bin). The play room is actually the original dining room in the house (evidenced by the fact that there is an obvious dining room light fixture which I’ve yet to replace even though I constantly bang my head on it). But given the small room size and a later addition to house making it a common travel path between the main entrance we use and the kitchen and stairs to the upstairs bedrooms, we use another room on the opposite side of the house as our dining room. The 3 room placement also allows us to block out the more dangerous parts of the house (kitchen, bathrooms, stairs) from our adventurous 15 month old son, Dominic (see exhibit A here).

Now, despite our best efforts, I see no way that we’ll be able to slow the seemingly exponential onslaught of the toys we receive on a regular basis.

The problem I have isn’t birthdays and Christmas. Yes, I cringe when my children open a present which contains more than a single piece which is bound to find its way into the nether regions of a couch or the black hole that is the bottom our toy bin (Fast forward days later to hear the screaming pleas of our 3 year old daughter Sofia when she can’t find that one small piece that she MUST bring to school that day as my wife and I are already going to be late for work and now must choose to spend the next 15 minutes searching for said piece or drag her kicking and screaming into the car).

For extended family, limiting crap on birthdays and Christmas is difficult. As expected, gifts are relatively low priced, they don’t have lists to go off of like grandparents and immediate family might have, and they also have next to no idea what your child already has. And I’m not bold and rude enough to ask people for receipts. It would be great to trade in the countless copycat toys we get, add up a few items and get something that the kids might really use. Instead, we’re left keeping these toys, and gulp, perhaps re-gifting them down the road. Hypocritical, I know, but perhaps the next recipient can actually enjoy it and if we just suck it up and open them, they’ll just get lost in toy bin oblivion only to turn up untouched in your local landfill.

While we don’t need any more toys, what kind of person would I be to deny the grandparents, aunts and uncles, etc. etc. their right to buy your children the toys that get them the “Red Rider BB gun best present ever” look on these occasions. Fine, I get it….no problem.

The PROBLEM is the presents they receive on other occasions. Grandparents use EVERY possible occasion as a reason to buy more presents. Some are bearable, particularly Valentine’s Day, Easter, and Halloween. Others….not so much. These include 4^th of July, Arbor Day, Labor Day, and “I haven’t seen you in two weeks and must shower you with gifts” Day. Besides the fact that we’re two toys short of the entire play room wall falling into the backyard, the gifts received on these occasions are inevitably……crap. We’re not talking the GI JOE with the Kung Foo grip that the grandparents sold their pork belly options to buy. These are the Christmas Tree Shop, Job Lot, Flea Market, Jane Doe’s Yard Sale not worth the 50 cents you spent on them…..crap. Put it this way, I would need to use more than my fingers and toes to count all the Valentine’s Day stuffed animals Sofia and Dominic have.

I have discovered that through years of evolution grandparents have adapted and their bodies grow a sort of hearing buffer which keeps them from hearing the constant pleas of their sons and daughters to STOP BUYING TOYS FOR YOUR GRANDCHILDREN!

And grandparents are also cunning creatures. They have discovered new ways to slip toys through parents’ toy blocking nets. One tactic uses the child against the parent. Give children a toy they love before the parent notices it and good luck telling the child that the toy needs to stay at grandma and grandpa’s house. Pictures of Charlton Heston holding a rifle come to mind.

The second tactic that I’ve recently noticed involves the sleepover. Apparently, grandparents have interrogated Columbian drug lords to discover their smuggling secrets. Packing up bags for two young children to stay at their grandparent’s house for a night has been known to require a U-HAUL rental. Grandparents have learned that packing up the bags for you for the journey home allows strategic placement of toys at the bottom of suitcases and diaper bags.

Let me finish by saying that Sofia and Dominic’s grandparents love them very much, take every opportunity to babysit them and if this is the only complaint I have about them, then I should consider myself lucky.

This is the best picture of the toy bin I could find. In the picture are Nana (my mother), Jackson (my nephew) and my daughter Sofia.