Do your kids have a ton of toys? Mine do.
That being said, every so often I reach my breaking point with toys and snap. Today was one of those days. It got pretty ugly and a really unattractive barbie met her fate... the black trash bag.
I should have known today was going to be unfortunate. It is spring break and we for once are staying in town doing absolutely nothing. This sounded lovely last week while I was busy driving the kids to their various extra curricular activities and helping with homework. The thought of waking up in the morning with a completely blank agenda appeared to be heaven. I pictured days filled with organizing my drawers and cupboards while the kids amused themselves by playing games and coloring. I know that to you those things sound lame but if you suffer from mild OCD as I do, organizing drawers is porn. Since we have already concluded that I have Clark W Griswald-type expectations from some of my previous blogs, we know that I blew this up a bit big.
The beginning of this week went well. Elliot's preschool is not on spring break so she was gone during the day on Monday. Aiden and I ran errands, bonded over scary TV shows and I got 2 drawers cleaned in the kitchen as well as the entire play room organized. I was able to have enough patience to make a delicious dinner and all was right with the world. Tuesday was a bit more challenging. Elliot went to spend the morning with my mother in law while I attempted to work on the drawers in my bathroom. I started feeling a cold coming on and after looking over my 1 year old I found the source of my symptoms. I nearly forgot about Elliot's kindergarten check up and had a flop with a new recipe I was writing. At about 7 o'clock I felt a fever brewing and passed out on the couch. Today I woke to a irritating feeling of doom. I was pissed off the minute I discovered a dirty kitchen, no coffee, and sinus drainage. The older 2 fought like cats and dogs all morning and I literally got nothing productive done. By 3 I was shaking mad. I had stepped on the last lego I was going to step on for the rest of my life. I looked around my house and saw nothing but evidence of children. I know that I have them obviously, but I don't think I need to be reminded of their spoiled lifestyle in every room of our house. Before Sophie came Scott and I had successfully removed all toys and child related junk from our kitchen, bedroom and living room. We explained to them that they had their bedrooms and an entire play room (Scott painfully relinquished the "man lair" for this) to house their things. Fast forward 15 months and my living room is yet again filled with toddler toys. I can expect mild mess from the baby but will not tolerate overflow from the original 2.
To be fair the barbie that lost her life belonged to our cat Dexter. He has become an excellent barbie thief and Ellie lovingly gave him a barbie she deemed ugly. This stupid doll is always on the floor and today got in the way of my rampage.
After first explaining to the kids that it wasn't fair that mommy clean up things that she didn't mess up (blank expressions indicated that they were not listening to me), mommy snapped. I first gained a creepy calm domineer before turning around and walking quietly to the garage and grabbing my trusty black trash bag. Aiden saw the bag first and his lip quivered. Elliot started running around the house grabbing various junk that she hoped to keep from the bag. I set a timer for 20 minutes and explained (sadly not in a loving manner) that I was done. Done stepping on toys, done picking up underwear off the floor, done wiping the toilet from the poor aim of my son, done finding moldy sippy cups under beds, done vacuuming 3 times a day from the various snack messes or pencil shaving. DONE. The kids had 20 minutes to clean their messes and I slowly roamed the house searching for things that I was gonna toss. The sad part is that I am super cheap and the thought of actually throwing things away sickened me. So I grabbed stuff like fake food from their make believe kitchen and that stupid ugly doll. I also happily tossed the nerf bullets and broken crayons. These selections were just enough to ensure for now that mommy means business.
This evening has been quiet and the kids are as we speak cleaning up the playroom again (this time without the black bag being waived).
Last year my brother in law Tom and I were discussing how our kids seem to have 100% more toys than we had as kids. I was a spoiled brat and still had less junk than my 3 kids. Tom told me that he and his younger sister had one big toy box. Their toys had to fit in this toy box or else. When holidays or birthdays loomed they had to decide what toys in the box were maybe babyish or under-used and toss them. My parents didn't subscribe to those rules. We had a huge basement that had arcade games and tons of toys. I had a huge train set and at one time an entire room devoted to my barbies (that I re-enacted scenes from Young and the Restless with). My kids have tons of people in their lives that love them and shower them with gifts. I will say that Aiden and Elliot have always been grateful and taken moderately good care of their things. The problem is that their things are everywhere.
While I am not going to buy one toy box for the kids to share (it would have to be a really big box). I am definitely in the market for some tips on handling the overflow.
Today my kids will go to bed remembering that their things can be removed if mommy is having an off day. Tomorrow they will most likely go back to their routines of dropping junk wherever they want and expecting mom to follow like a servant. So I will continue buying my black bags at Costco and hopefully one day when they're much older I will receive a phone call that my mother got from me a couple years ago. "Mom I'm so sorry, these kids are driving me crazy-how did you do it?" I'll tell them it'll get easier and that I love them and will pray for their patience--then I'll hang up and go to Toys R Us to buy my grand kids loads of annoying crap they don't need.
Pay Back, it is a...
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