I Pit My Kids' Toys

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

[From a father of three kids: 7 months, 2 1/2, 5 1/2]

Shahh! I am so sick and tired of picking up the damn toys!!

The first couple of years were not so bad. But now, now I’m just plain tired and my oldest has just reached kindergarden!

Every night it’s the same routine. Collect all the ‘people’ and ‘animals’, 1000 + I suspect, and toss them in the ‘People/Animals’ bin. Collect all the ‘cars’ and ‘trucks’, 500 + I suspect, and place them in the ‘Cars/Trucks’ bin. Collect all the ‘furniture’ pieces and place them in the…

Collect all the baby toys and place them in the ‘Baby’ bin.

Collect all the puzzle pieces.

Collect all the stuffed animals.

Put the books back.

Is the keychain supposed to go in the ‘Misc’ bin or on the shelf somwhere? Hell, I don’t know!

Every damn day. Thomas the Tank Engine. My Little Pony. Hot Wheels. Captain Cuffs. Barbie. Ahhh!!

Now, before you start thinking “Well, you’re kids should be putting their own toys away”, they do, the oldest anyway. The 7 month old and the 2 year old, bless their hearts, do not always do so, nor are they expected to. Our 2 year old does a pretty good job, considering his age. Anyway, I put a shitload of toys away between the time our oldest was born and our youngest was born.

I’m tired of putting the toys away!!!

And while I’m at it, I’m tired of cleaning the dishes every damn night! That’s right, my wife makes dinner, and I clean the dishes…every stinking night!

I’m tired of scraping the smushed peas off the kitchen floor with my fingernails. I’m tired of stepping on mac-n-cheese in my socks. I’m tired of potty training. I’m tired of untangling seat belts. I’m tired of reading “My Big Green Pocketbook”. I’m tired of watching JoJo’s damn Circus!!

[pant, pant…exhale]

It’s going to be alright, though. Soon, the middle one will be in K, the youngest will be in Pre-K, the oldest will be asking questions about the guy in the van down by the river.

Whew, I feel better already.

Man, I love my kids and I love parenthood! It’s all worth it, but man is it hard, sometimes…ok, a lot!

Cheers

2

I am not a parent- hell, I am barely grown myself and I am in no way questioning your parenting yadda yadda (like I’d have any room to talk anyway).

But wouldn’t a 2.5 year old and a 5.5 year old be able to pick up? Not everything, of course.

When I babysit, I make it a game and the kids love it. Just a thought :slight_smile:

3

Damn! This is exactly like something I have felt like posting. Only exception is I have one 4 year old with a bizillion toys, all of which must come out daily.
Somehow I feel…I dunno…less alone. :wink:

4

Yeah, but putting things in their proper places is just so gosh-darn satisfying, don’t you think?

(Off to MPSIMS.)

5

Instead of taking the toys out of the toy chest, buy a big jumbo toy chest and put the kids in it with the toys. That way, instead of having to put all the toys away in the toy chest every night, you just have to take a couple kids out of the box instead. It’s so simple.

6

If you have the space for it, I highly suggest a closet or such where you can lock away a huge chunk of their toys.

Then you can rotate them as desired and keep the house from imploding to the disaster that is looming.
Also, I am not preaching or tut tutting, I am making an observation as a parent myself ( and guilty as well.)

Pretty much 80% if this stuff is your fault. Yeah, you.

You can’t blame the Grandparents or holiday/birthday combo for all of it.

If is probably you and impulse purchasingn to balm your guilt or living through them vicariously. Admit it, we’ve all done it. and don’t forget, there is more shit out there now than when we were kids. And it is much better shit, too. Though, truth be said, you cannot beat the classics!

When our stuffed animal situation here was reaching critical mass, I put a moratorium on them ( telling my inlaws and mom as well.)and when the kids were in school, I weeded out the herd and donated a couple garbage bags. (Also, stuffed animals are harbingers of doom. They carry dust mites…evil little buggers…that hate my family.)

I have to say the biggest crapola that clutters my place is McDonald’s toys.

I cannot stand McDonald’s toys.

I do not take my kids to McDonalds anymore.

Unfortunately, my husband and inlaws see nothing wrong with the evil that lurks under those Golden Arches, and continue to feed them a kid sizes McHeart Attack with a toy!

My other problem is that as I am a garage saler, I can pick up for the cost of One thing full price at the store, several other thingies as well. This ups the clutter factor 100%. Now that they are older (5 and 7) the good toys are harder to find ( unlike the baby/toddler /preschool stuff that every mom is very happy to offload for cheap.) so I’ve learned to be pickier and stop my impulse buying.

I also am making a concerted effort to not buy a toy connected to a TV cartoon. This, for me, is remarkably easy to do and I also make a tremendously huge effort to shop only at independant toy stores because A)They care about the kid and their imagination and b) the stuff costs way more and curbs that urge to get shit on sale. c) I hate toys r us They are a intradimensional portal to hell.

Setting your house on fire might be therapuetic, but also, cause some legal & housing problems.
In contusion, I feel your pain.

One day, they will be on their own and my house will be neat and orderly and it will be a drag.

7

May I heartily recommend taking the first day/week the kids are in school to set aside a “Mass purging and thinning of the herd” time. Just go off your meds and throw into garbage bags a bunch of toys you know the kids haven’t played with in a while or never showed interest in. ( Or you just hate. Go on…it is highly therapuetic.) and donate it somewhere.

I do this the First Week of School. After January and Just Before The Kids Are REleased for Summer Break.

Purgings are so much fun.

8

Heh. I’m sitting here staring at hundreds of Matchbox cars, a Thomas the Tank Engine train set, a pile of blocks, and 3 puzzle books completely disassembled, all lying all over the living room floor. Not to mention the stack of books that’ve been pulled from their shelf, the sixteen stuffed animals, and random pieces of clothing that have been discarded during the day. Oh, and a pile of dirty dishes. Yeah, I’m procrastinating. I figure, my husband will be home in two hours. I can get this picked up and the floor vacuumed in under an hour. Right? RIGHT?

9

I scored a bagfull of Barbies from the thrift store up the street - $8 for the lot of them! Got it home & realized there were 18 Barbies in this bag. Soon as I get a chance, I’m pulling out 12 of them to send onward, to another thrift store, in hopes that someone else will enjoy them.

A thousand Little People? I’d put a third of them “out of rotation”, and send a third of them to someone else. Right now is a great time for purging, with so many people in need.

10

Is there a more sickening sound than that of some box of 1000+ little @#$%& toy pieces being dumped on the floor? I haven’t heard it.

11

Make the kids clean them up. It’s called learning responsibility. I make a mess with my tools, I clean it up. They make a mess with their toys, they clean them up.

12

I was going to recommend throwing the damn things away as well. What I especially hate is the broken bits. If I hurl them into the trash in front of my kids, they get upset, even though it’s broken! Hope springs eternal in the breasts of my children that one day the toy will be repaired, just as soon as they find the other four pieces and something is invented which is stronger than superglue.

And don’t even start with the Happy Meal toys. My ex-husband used to work at McDonald’s and he had a huge box in the garage filled with complete sets of many different Happy Meal promotions. Yeah, like this plastic replica of Fred Flintstone’s house is going to be worth something someday. I gave those bastards out for Halloween after he moved out.

13

My wife and I (bless her heart) are on the same page when it comes to being packrats. We are not allowed to accumulate much of anything. Our closets hold a certain amount of clothes. If we want new clothes we can get them but we have to get rid of old clothes to make room. No way were going to start another closet.
She reads lots of books and has one bookshelf. If she brings books home she takes a pile from home to sell at the half-price bookstore.
I play a lot of video games. But before I buy another I have to sell back one first. I’ve owned over 50 games but never had more than 3 at once.

When we have kids we plan to do the same with their toys. They will have a designated amount. Sure they’ll get bored with them and want newer and different toys. But not until they get rid of some of the older ones first.

14

Why the heck did this get moved to MPSIMS? This isn’t “mundane” or “pointless”. This is serious stuff. And I was venting, letting off a little steam. Somehow it just doesn’t seem as cathartic sitting here in MPSIMS. Oh well.

Yeah, yeah, I know the kids should be picking up their own toys. The oldest does a great job the vast majority of the time. The middle one does a pretty job, given his age, too. But let’s face it folks, there a times when it just doesn’t get all done. Dinner is late, the baby is crying, it’s bath night, behind schedule, it’s already past bedtime, yadda yadda yadda.

Plus, lets not forget there was a good two years straight (oldest birth to age 2) where it was just us picking up the toys.

Bottom line, including the kids picking up their own toys, we’ve picked up a hell of a lot of toys so far!

Obviously, this will change as the kids get older (right?).

Oh yes, the purging and the rotations. Check, check. Done it many, many times; Purging goes to Goodwill, rotations go in the attic. But you know what, the toy mass always comes back to it’s optimum size! Why? [looks at Shirley Ujest] Because of the three sets of Grandparents that live nearby, that’s why! No matter how many times we’ve told them our modest townhouse can not support any more toys, they still bring them! All the time! Just how in the heck are you supposed to stop six grandparents, who have no other grandkids, from spoiling your kids? How? How I ask you???

Did I mention the ‘kitchen’ toys? The plastic, multi-colored kitchen toys and fake food that goes with mini kid kitchen we setup in the basement.

And the paper. There’s paper everywhere! Coloring paper. Sticker paper. Doodling paper.

I swear to god, it’s a daily battle to keep our little townhouse from drowning in a sea of kids stuff!!! After work, after the kids’ bedtime routine, after cleaning the kitchen, after putting away all the misc. stuff that is left over from the kids’ cleanup, after all that, the house is clean and organized for about two hours of awake time, before we go to bed. And then the next day, bam, it’s a disorganized mess. And the cycle starts over again.

So tired, so very, very tired.

15

Is this a guy thing? Not to be sexist, but my Hubby has a much harder time dealing with the chaos of children. Many of my friends have remarked the same.

As a SAHM, I embrace the chaos. Flow with it, play with the kids, see what happens when they stick the bottle cap on the zebra head, find out whether I can stack blocks, a plastic bun, three stuffed animals and an old shoe.

Then, at 4:30, it all goes in the bins (one for all types of blocks, one for little people & their accessories, one for dolls, one for musical instruments) so that Dad comes home to an orderly house. It doesn’t stay perfect, but there isn’t enough time in the evening for the kids to launch a full-out assault

Another suggestion - send toys to the grandparents’ houses! The noisier the better! I’ve got bins at two satellite locations. Leave some in the car as well.

16

I definitely understand (not empathize, since I have no kids) with the toys and messiness frustrations, but:

What’s the problem here? She cooks, you clean up. Would you rather alternate with her (definitely mention it to her if that’s the case!). I read that and it sounds like you think it’s some abomination that you have to :: gasp :: do the dishes. :confused:

17

It’s more of a “I-can’t-walk-in-our-small-ass-living-room-without-stepping-on-a-toy” frustration. I rough-house and fantasy play with my kids all the time. That’s the fun part. The sea of toys, the cleaning up, the broken cheerios, that’s what I’m tired of.

My wife’s parents have a boat load of toys at their house as well (they live really close by). We don’t go over to other grandparents houses very often, for a variety of reasons which shall not be spoken about, so they don’t have a lot of toys there. But they visit often. :wink:

Heh, “satellite locations”. That cracked me up!

Again, I was venting. You’ve never looked a 3-foot high stack of dirty dishes and said, “Damn, I’m so tired of doing the dishes!”?

I realize it’s my responsibility, and I never fail to do it. It’s just that sometimes, one needs to verbalize the frustration of a daily chore, or shall I say, multiple daily, neverending, chores.

Sometimes, after a particularly frustrating day at the office, it all seems too much. At times like this, you have to dig down really deep to find the energy and the motivation to complete the tasks.

18

Well, yeah, that’s understandable. It’s just that when your complaint also mentions your wife doing an equal amount of work (the cooking) for dinnertime, it seems a bit rediculous to say, “I have to do them every night! That’s right!” with an implied “can you imagine?!”

19

So…Giraffe moved this out of The Pit? I gotta wonder if he’s gots kids. This definitely goes there. Got myself a brood as well and, while I do love the little shits, their toys, well, I pray for a housefire sometimes. My favorites are the “partial” toys. You know, the sets that have some parts missing or broken that you try to slip into a trashbag when nobody’s looking but which the wife finds and pulls out of the trash because “the kids still play with that!” Maybe it’s just me, but if it’s broke and I can’t fix it it disappears!

Innuendo Hunter, you seem like you’re alright. Stay with us for a while.

And make sure you and the Huntress get regular time together AWAY from the place. I can not stress this enough. Parenthood is great. Wouldn’t trade it for anything. Blah Blah Blah. But man, the kids wear out more than just clothes,toys, your home electronics, baseboards, doorknobs and window latches. All that crap can be replaced at Home Depot & Wal*Mart. Bet on the fact that the Huntress is just as tired of cooking those damned peas as you are of scraping 'em up.

20

Sorry for the quote, zweisamkeit, I hit a wrong button.