Most days now when I walk into my boys bedroom (they share a room), I end up stepping on a piece of lego, or knocking over a prized possession. We have simply run out of shelves and surfaces on which to store their vast lego, playmobile, and figurine collections.
Also, as my kids have gotten older, their toys have gotten bigger. And this makes it ever harder to store them and keep their bedrooms and play space neat. Big airplanes with 2 ft wing span (doesn’t fit on any shelf). Large square playmobile spy forts with secret entrances that must be accessed from all sides. Mini airhockey tables. Large wooden pirate ships and knights in castles. What on earth does one do with all this stuff??
In our house, what can not fit on shelves and a play table, now lives on the floor in the boys bedroom!! But when toys can no longer be contained in big Tupperware boxes, and the floors start to become storage space… the house begins to look like one big mess.
And it drives me crazy.
What’s a mom to do?
Is this a time for the “let go of the non-critical stuff” in parenting, or a time for “let’s teach these kids an important skill” parenting moment (i.e. organizing and letting go of old toys)?
Those with a basement seem to stash away most of their mess downstairs, but as we do not have that luxury, I have been forced to pursue a “Reduce, reuse, recycle” strategy in my house.
We have a ton of toys that we no longer use, and those will get weeded out and sent to charity. We also need to do a bit of organizing and get those lego kits that are not being used out away in a box, or displayed on a shelf. (I think we need more shelf space too.)
And finally, I need to work with my kids a little more consistently on not letting the mess grow too big in the first place. Right now, we have a big clean up at the end of the weekend, and sporadic mini-cleans during the week. But what we are missing is the on-going effort of staying on top of the mess during the week. If we can develop the habit of putting away toys when we are done playing, and before taking down a new toy, I hope that will help keep the lego carpet syndrome at bay. (Of course I should have done this from when they were little, but somehow we fell into bad habits!)
So, wish me luck.
And please tell me I am not alone in fighting the mounds of mess that toys create.
