Operation Toy Donation

(Sorry for the break in the blogging.  First it was because the year was all normal and boring with nothing to write about and then it was because everyone got sick.)

We have a lot of toys in this house.  I mean a lot.  There are bins in the game room, bins in Liam's room, a small pile in Jamie's room, a crap ton in the family room, and at least 4 or 5 large bins worth in storage in the basement.  Each Christmas and birthday bring more.  I have stuff stashed away that Liam has outgrown waiting on Jamie to grow into.  I have stuff that's too young for both the kids.  The kids can't play with everything they have.  It's ridiculous.

As a result of this, it has been my plan for some time to divest the house of the excess.  If the kids can't play with it and I'm reduced to storing it, there has GOT to be a place where these things can be used.  I asked Twitter.  I asked Facebook.  I got no advice.  So, I asked my daycare a couple of weeks ago if they needed or wanted toys and they enthusiastically said yes.  Finally!  A place to get rid of stuff cluttering up my house!

Then, in the course of everyone in the house being sick but the kids being a lot less sick than the adults, they completely emptied all the toy bins and the toy box causing a toy tornado that littered the family room with toys long forgotten.  The number of fast food meal toys was really shocking - some of them predated Jamie's existence.

Yesterday I was finally feeling somewhat human and I couldn't stand the filth anymore so I started cleaning.  While Liam was at school and Jamie was napping, I attacked the family room.  I separated stuff out into toys to throw away (every. single. Burger King toy I could lay my hands on), toys to donate, and toys to keep.

I grabbed a big box left over from Christmas to put the toys to donate into and a trash bag to throw the crap toys into.

I filled the box and had to get another.

I filled the kitchen sized trash bag half full with BK toys alone.  Then I started shoving actual trash in there and filled it up.

I cleaned up the rest of the stuff to keep and stacked it neatly in the toy corner of the family room.  Then I took the toys to be donated down to my car and put them in my trunk so the kids wouldn't see them and freak out.  It filled half my trunk.  When Jamie goes to daycare on Wednesday, I'll deliver the load.

I threw the garbage bag of BK toys into the trash can in the garage to hide that.

The scary part?  This was only the family room.  I haven't touched either of the boys' rooms or the game room or the stored toys.  I know I have at least one large bin full of baby toys that needs to go.

There's another scary part to this tale.  When I finished cleaning up the family room, I looked at the neatly stacked pile of toys and it was just as large as it had been before I cleaned things out.  The only difference was that there were different toys in the pile.

It's no wonder I have trouble keeping this house clean.