Toy Thursday: Those Darn Random Toys!

On Tip Tuesday this week, I talked about Toy Storage Solutions. A face book friend posted the following comment in response, " I like your idea about the dishes containers. My biggest issue is that crazy collection of miscellaneous, and sometimes junk, toys. We don't have a lot of room, so I use under bed storage boxes are our solution for now. We can fit about 3-4 under ...a twin bed. In the boys' room, one entire box is dedicated to toys from the movie Cars. And if the junk toys fill up an entire box, then we have to start getting rid of them."

I totally sympathize with my friend regarding those darn random toys that seem to pop up anywhere and always at the worse times. These are the miscellaneous toys that do not seem to go with anything else. These are the McDonald's Happy Meal toys that seem to litter the floor and end up under your feet as you walk across the room. These are those annoying toys that you hate but entertain your kids for hours. You get the point.

In fact, I myself just went through a bunch of our random toys out of desperation. I just could not stand it anymore. I was getting tired of stepping on them and finding them all over the house in strange places.

Unfortunately I still have some of those random toys as the kid would take notice that they were gone which might create even more problems. So in the meantime, I have implemented an idea from another friend.

I learned that kids love to call things their own like a "secret" drawer that they can put anything into and empty out to their hearts delight. This drawer belongs to the nightstand in our bedroom (and contains the only toys currently in our room). And this is where we stuff those random things that Judah cannot part with and I do not know where else to store.

We have several strings of beads, a whistle, a top, old (now play) cell phones, and other random junk that we have picked up along the way as a freebie prize or gift. Then when mommy is in her room doing chores like folding laundry, Judah usually opens his drawer and entertains himself with these random pieces of "junk."

From time to time we clean out the drawer replacing some toys with our newest finds. We keep our favorites as we enjoy them time and time again (unless mommy steps on them).

Good luck trying to tackle the mess of random toys. As my friend above suggests, randomly clean out the junk toys from time to time before they truly take over your house (and your life).