Toys

At some point last fall, I can't remember exactly when, I reorganized the boys room while they were at Nana's house. We got one of these inexpensive, but somewhat cute, storage systems. We got a set a little smaller than the links shows, and it's blue instead of pink. Though pink would have been OK with either boy, it's their favorite color. Really. It lives in their closet. It's really more accurate to say its crammed into their tiny closet along with a thousand other things, including some really cool vintage clothes from Grandma Ellerman's closet.

But, right after Christmas our house was overflowing with toys and I knew we needed to edit the toy collection. I tried to edit the collection when we got the storage system, for every toy I considered getting rid of I could also imagine a scenario wherein the boys might want to play with that toy. It's hard to get rid of toys, I've decided. And I'm pretty good at getting rid of stuff. Just ask Keith where his fleece with the holes, the holey t-shirt or that throw pillow he loved so much but smelled like Elvis is now. 

So, with the boys at Nana's again, I pulled all the toys out of the bins. Here is a small view of what was scattered on the floor. 

Then the sorting began. Small things that fly went into one bin. I was almost done finding all the small airplanes when I remembered that Cole likes to hoard things, so I pulled back his covers and found 3 more little airplanes. He likes to take a toy to bed with him, and that really isn't a big deal, but usually you'll find him 30 minutes later, still awake, "flying" the airplane through the sky. So we made a deal that he can take the toy to bed, but he must lay down and the airplane must be under the covers next to him. And this is how several airplanes were in his bed. I also found 2 books, one of Grady's stuffed animals, a spoon, and one of my hair rubber bands. 

In the next bin went little people, other characters like Oso, sesame street characters and little animals. Basically anything not transportation related.

Another small bin got their "electronics". Yes, we let them play with our old cordless phones. 

And into a large ziplock went a decision I still regret. We have these little balls scattered throughout the house. Under armoire's, under the couch, behind pieces of furniture. They are from several different toys the boys had when they were younger, and we've donated most of those toys, but some balls stayed behind. And as I was organizing the toys I kept putting the balls into the ziplock, and then finally had to decide what to do with the bag. Here is how my thinking went:


 Uggh. These balls. Who gives a gift with small hard balls to toddlers? Must remember so i can retaliate when their kids have bdays. Keep or toss?


Toss. Definitely toss. These babies are hard and G does love to launch it across the room.


But...maybe the boys will want to play outside with them? Yes. Keep. Definitely keep. They'll be good children and only play outside with them.


Who am i kidding, they won't. There will be 10 balls all over the house, I'll get hit in the face, and one of my pottery pieces will get broken. Or a window. Or a brother's face.


Toss.


And I really was going to toss them, except we were having date night that same night since the boys were at Nana's, and then it time to get ready, and I stuck the bag of balls somewhere. You know, with the intention of coming back and throwing them away the next day before the boys were back. 


Only, I did not do that and naturally, the first thing the boys played with was....the bag of balls. So come visit us and you will find a yellow ball in the living room, the bright red ball next to Cole's placemat, the turqoise in the bathtub, and who knows where the rest are. Damn balls. 


I will say that the little blue soccer ball did make its way outside. It gets played with a lot, but is not missing in a big shrub.