My oldest child, Shane (8), has been working on memorizing the first stanza of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Bells," so I thought I would have a little fun with a spin on Poe's poem. Here's the original:

The Bells
by Edgar Allan Poe

Hear the sledges with the bells--
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight.
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells--
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

The Toys
by Kristin Ann

See the home with all the toys--
All the toys!
What a world of excess their existence foretells!
How they whir, beep, and crinkle,
In an otherwise cozy home!
While the LEGOs oversprinkle
All the carpets, plastics twinkle
Abomination to the eyes.
Telling the children time, after time, after time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To tidy their playthings, which they never do so well.
Oh, the toys, toys, toys, toys,
Toys, toys, toys--
Oh, the smashing and the crashing of the toys.

It's funny... and it's not. I don't think it's good for my children to have too many toys, for lots of reasons. Just to name a few, I've noticed that when the boys are allowed excess, they are unappreciative of their playthings, are more easily distracted, and tend to use their imaginations less. It's also not great for the parent-child relationship. As much as I try to make tidying up a game ("Let's see who can pick up the most toys in one minute!"), it turns into scolding and reprimanding by the end of the day. (Who has the patience to dose out a spoon full of sugar when they've sweetly asked their children umpteen times to pick up their Hot Wheels, only to discover that they "picked them up" by hiding them under the couch?)

Managing the toys that enter our home can feel like a full-time job, but I think that the most helpful way to accomplish this is to be very selective about what actually makes it in. We check toys for quality, safety, imaginative potential, and educational value. Even if they tick all of these boxes, we still may not let them in simply because our home's capacity is already filled! It's like being a strict bouncer at a posh club. (You know, the club at which drinks are served in sippy cups, and the D.J. spins VeggieTales "Silly Songs.") I am quick to get rid of toys that don't make the cut. I made a few guidelines for myself that make this easy:

{guidelines I follow when purging toys}

{1} If it's broken or missing pieces, it goes in the trash.

{2} If it's a duplicate, we keep the nicer of the two and the other is sold, donated, or trashed.

{3} If it takes longer to pick up than it is actually played with (i.e., lots of little pieces), it is sent to the rummage sale pile or a bag of donations headed to the thrift store.

There are a couple exceptions to this one. The first is toys that I use for the purpose of home education. For example, I have a Super Sorting Pie by Learning Resources that is great for hand-strength, fine-motor skills, color/number recognition, sorting, etc. I used to allow the boys to play with it on their own, but the result was little pieces of fruit everywhere that made me crazy. I now store it on a high shelf. When I have some one-on-one time with my toddler/preschooler, I pull it down for supervised play. The other exception is LEGOs, K'NEX, Perler beads, etc. We are constantly finding LEGOs and K'NEX all over the house, and I can't tell you how many times I've had to help clean up a spilled bucket of Perler beads, but my boys play with them longer than it takes to pick them up, and I feel like the entertainment/educational value outweighs the annoyance.

{4} If it is an outdoor ball, it goes to the garage. Any "inside" balls are sold, donated, or trashed. I used to allow "inside" balls under the condition that the boys would not throw them, but only roll them across the floor. HOWEVER. The boys never wanted to roll the balls gently across the floor. (Duh, Kristin.) It occurred to me that, since I don't want them throwing balls in the house, we shouldn't have any in the house, period. That decision greatly reduced the number of reminders I had to give about house rules!

The exception to this rule are a few "indoor" balls I keep specifically for babies/toddlers. I use these for sensory development, color identification, and hand-eye coordination.

{5} If it's loud and obnoxious, it goes. As I was working on this post, I happened upon this quote, which I adore:

"‪I just paid my teenager actual money to make my toddler's toy recorder disappear forever. Obnoxiously loud toys were created by Satan. Fact.‬"
~ Kristina Kuzmic 

For Christmas, I bought my then 2-year-old a toy tape measure, since he was always interested in our real one. What I didn't realize, though, was how NOISY this toy was. It made a really loud whirring sound when the tape was distended, and then it made an obnoxious cranking sound when it was wound back in. I put it on top of the refrigerator for a few days to see if my son would miss it. When he didn't, I tossed it in the rummage sale pile.

{6} If Dan or I don't like a toy for any reason, we get rid of it. As parents, we have ultimate veto power. Of course, we would never get rid of something our children actually love and use. The sad truth is that the boys have so many toys, they don't even notice when we get rid of something at least 99% of the time.

{tips}

For children who are too young to make good decisions about what to keep and what to let go of, it is best to purge toys when they are not around. When they see that something is headed to the rummage sale pile, all of the sudden that toy becomes their absolute favorite, even though it's accumulated an inch of dust.

As a homeschooler, it can be quite challenging to find blocks of time when the children are not around. One of my homeschool heroes and very dear mom-friends, Sarah, told me about "Daddy Day." Once a month (or so), her husband takes the children for the entire day, so she can power-clean and do whatever she needs to do kid-free. This is when she grabs a garbage bag and does her toy purges. (Genius!) Our family used to have a monthly "Daddy Day," but we put that on hiatus when Theo was born. We will be picking it back up when Theo stops needing a morning nap, which won't be for another year or so. In the absence of "Daddy Day," I utilize my ninja skills. I bury things in the trash, put rummage sale toys in cardboard boxes (so the boys can't see them), and put donation items in brown paper bags (also so they can't be seen).

For older children, I recommend actually teaching them about only keeping the things they use and/or are very dear to them. We do this with my oldest son, who goes through reams, and reams, and reams of paper. About once a month, we gather all of his papers, dump them on the floor, and tell him he needs to sort them into piles: Keep, Recycle, and Maybe. (In the end, he always decides to recycle the "Maybe" papers.) Funny story about this: One evening, shortly before Shane's bedtime, we noticed that the amount of papers had gotten out of hand (again), so Dan rounded them up, dumped them all on Shane's bedroom floor, and instructed him to sort them. (Conner, who shares a bedroom with Shane, was starting out the night in our bed. He occasionally suffers from night terrors, and it's comforting for him to start out in our bed.) Dan and I were downstairs catching up on each other's days and chatting, and I finally headed upstairs around 10:00 to get ready for bed. I noticed the light was on in Shane's room, and there was the poor dear still sorting papers, a good two hours after his bedtime! We had assumed he had finished and put himself to bed. Oops! He had to finish in the morning. Did I mention he goes through a lot of papers?

We involve all of the boys when paring down on Hot Wheels. They have waaaaaaaay more Hot Wheels than they need, so every so often we do a Hot Wheel draft. The boys grab their Hot Wheels cases (each child has one), and we dump all the Hot Wheels on the rug. Then they take turns "drafting" cars. (Dan drafts for the little ones who can't select their own.) When their cases are full, they are done. We color code the cars by painting a little spot on the bottom of each one, so we can tell whose is whose (we use $0.99 bottles of nail polish from Walmart). The remainder of the Hot Wheels go in the rummage sale pile.

Purging toys and teaching our children how to manage their things definitely helps, but Dan and I noticed that the boys still had way too many toys and were not playing with many of them. Fueled by January's strong organization vibe, I tackled a big project that I hoped would have big rewards. Check back next week to see how my experiment with TOY ROTATION turned out, if you're so inclined. 🙂

Do you have any tips for managing the number and quality of toys in your household?