I am
a mom of 2 children (2 and 5) and care for another 1 year old in my
home several days a week. We recently spoiled our children with
their birthdays and before that, Christmas. By we I mean my family
and friends. OK my husband and I did too. I thought we had too many
toys before the holidays and now the amount we have accumulated is
simply out of control. I regularly go though them and get rid
of toys that the kids don't really play with or are broken. When I
look at what is left, I remember buying it for them and just knowing
they would love it. Or watching them open the toys as a gift from
someone else and I simply don't want to give it away any more than my
kids do. I know eventually we will be free of all these toys
with a billions of pieces or sounds that could drive even the sanest
person to run screaming from the house. I know some day I will be
able to walk though my living room with out feeling like I am walking
though a landmine. When that day comes I am told I will miss all the
toys but for today, I have resolved that it is where we are in life.
If
there is one thing I am good at, it is organizing. Over the
years I have made many attempts to organize the toys spending hours
on the floor with a pile of toys. 2 days later, the toys are
all messed up again. Though my kids have a firm grasp on how to
clean up, they struggle with putting a toy away before taking another
one out. It does not help that often they will take pieces of
several different toys to create a whole new toy. This is
something that I find adorable and wish to encourage so most days we
let the living room go until just before bed time. Unfortunately
with the amount of toys we now possess, this chore takes the whole
family too long.
In my
endeavor to find and organizational plan that will actually work with
my kids and our life, I have come up with this. And I don't
mind sounding like an organizational geek when I say I am pretty darn
excited about it.
As
you can see from the picture I purchased about 20 simple bankers
boxes for about $25, not bad. I have organized the toys (yet
again) into collections. There are horses, Lego friends, zoobles, etc for my older daughter and 6 different "Toddler
Boxes" for the 2 little ones in the house. At the start of
each week, we put away the toys we have been playing with for the
week in the bankers boxes and then the girls get to pick out a new box
for the week. What is in that box remains their focus for the
week. We also have some craft boxes with paint, play-doe, etc
that we can choose to play with but they all get put away before taking out the next box.
Of
course there are toys that don't go in the boxes that the girls play
with constantly. In our house stuffed animals are like best
friends so those stay out as well as simple art supplies like paper
and markers. These are used pretty much daily.
As
you can see from the picture, they are not the prettiest boxes and I
am sure I could make them more appealing to look at but for us they
work. I am able to stay sane in my own house and though it is
far from magazine ready, I think it balances our style with our crazy
life quite well.
Thanks
for taking a look.
