Toy Thursday: All those Toys!

Now that we are home again, it is time to assess the damage from Christmas fun. Bows, boxes, tissue paper, and lots of new toys are strewn across the floor. If your house is like mine, then your kids received a ton of toys from family members. As if you are not already tired from traveling, visiting, and picking up the house, now you have to pick up the toys as well.

My dilemma in our small house is where am I going to put them all?

Good question! I have already stepped on them many times. I am sick of the musical noise that seems to keep going off. Judah has already colored on some, too. And we might be missing one or two of the pieces already. Yikes, it has turned into a toy store at our house.

I have decided that now is a good time as any to sort through the toys, since they are already out and you have new ones to put away.

Doing this while Judah sleeps, I am organizing similar items together in piles, making sure all the pieces are together. I will divide them up and put like items in separate boxes, with one set out to play and the other set put away in the closet. This is also a good time to wash any that need cleaning. The remaining toys for play, I will divide up among the rooms of our house so that as we move from room to room, he has something new to play with. The toys put away will be rotated out each month to replace the ones accessible right now and rotating them from room to room. If I get really desperate, I will get something new out for a snowy day, especially the activity-type toys. The toys we have grown out of are being passed on to friends and cousins for use.

Try this at home.

Remove.
Sort through all the toys, making sure all the pieces are together. Throw away old, broken toys. Now is a good time to wash toys that may need it.

Reuse.
For unused toys, swap them out with friends for others, donate to a charity, see if the church nursery can use them, or pass onto family members such as Grandma's house for all the cousins to use. Swap stuff using totsswapshop.com or kizoodle.com. You could also set stuff aside to sell on CraigsList or Ebay or have a garage sale and use the funds for new gifts.

Rotate.
Put away some toys in the closet, rotating them out periodically with the toys on the shelf. Do the same with books. Also, rotate the toys between rooms as some are played with in certain rooms over others. This way you can carry the child into a room and already have toys handy when you are doing chores or cleaning. Hide the toys in a specific drawer or in a basket on a shelf. Keep bigger toys out in the garage for easy access.

These toy tips will help save your sanity if not your foot from stepping on them, and give you a little extra room around the house.