The Evil Toy Room of Doom

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-26-2003
The Evil Toy Room of Doom
6
Sat, 10-02-2004 - 10:14am
Hubby and our oldest son went camping with our Cub Scout pack this weekend for the "Dad and Lad" camp, so it's just me and the twins (4 year old boys lol) for the weekend. I think we're going to purge the toy room...ugh! I swear I think stupid plastic toys do unspeakable things in the dark in there, because they seem to be multiplying... I cleaned that room out two weeks ago, and it's buried again. Please tell me that I'm not the only person in the world that uses a broom and a plastic snow shovel to pick up toys LOL! I'm going to reorganize all of the "stuff" this weekend, and sort out the blocks, and dig the army men out of the play doh...all that fun stuff.

Do your houses stay as clogged with useless plastic things as mine does??? I really don't think we buy them that many toys, but with three of them, it just sort of accumulates. How do yours take donating toys? I have to wait until they're asleep and sneak the stuff out of the house under cover of darkness. Otherwise, it's just really really ugly. I'm at my wit's end with this--I hate to toss their toys (especially since I know how much the things cost) but we just have more toys that room for them. I don't let them keep toys other than stuffed animals in their bedroom--we're really into "the bedroom is for sleeping"--but their toy room is pretty large, and they have multiple level shelves with big baskets, plus we put a set of bunk beds in there against one wall, and made the bottom bunk into a couch for them in front of their tv, and the top bunk has a piece of plywood cut to fit and painted to match the bed, so all their big bulky stuff lives up there. We STILL don't have enough room. UGH! I'm just going to empty the room into a pile in the hallway, and only keep what will fit back in there with an actual home. Something tells me I'm going to be on three boys poopoo list...:)

Angela

The Toy Terminator

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-12-2003
Sat, 10-02-2004 - 6:17pm
ROFLMAO!! you are too much, and it's even funnier b/c i could have written this post myself earlier this week. after i bagged up three trash bags full of toys and took them to goodwill i felt sooo much better, lol.

i've been doing that every 6 mo or so since the kids were babies so they're fine with it, but i have a friend who's kids hate it and i think she has a great trick. she tells them "fine, you don't have to give anything away unless you want to, but you can't get any new toys until you part with some old ones." and she means it, nothing out of the quarter machines, no mcdonalds toys, NADA. they cave pretty fast, lol.

when i go toy trashing i have three rules about what goes and what stays. anything from a fast food resturant and anything that hasn't been played with in 6 weeks goes, anything with little parts that i constantly find in the toilet, under the bed, in the fridge, or trip over in the hallway in the middle of the night goes; and they can each salvage three things and only three things from the 'go' pile. beyond that it's a free for all, lol.

it's a pita but it's soooo nice when things are clean enough to actually find what they want to play with, i think they have so much more fun. gl!

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-27-1998
Sun, 10-03-2004 - 12:29am
I am in the middle of a purge myself. I moved the "to be donated or consigned" toys to my room. The playroom looks like a room where you can actually play now. Unfortunately my oldest (age 5) found the stash and keeps asking what I am planning on doing with them.

His birthday is coming up soon, and then Christmas, and this is a matter of survival LOL!

We now have a futon, a case of matchbox cars and a bag with the rest on top of it, one of those three level organizers with plastic bins (holding rescue heroes, kitchen items, etc...), a bag of building blocks, Lincoln logs, an old coffee table with a bottom shelf which serves as Little People Land, a corner with the Rescue hero mountain command center, a home depot tool bench, two ride on buses, a container with various plush items, and a closet with a ton of games, legos, and thomas wood tracks and trains. I still have to find room to move the kitchen back in from the garage where it sits wrapped in plastic.

I cannot believe how much stuff these kids have. I am responsible for about 25% of it.

baby growth



New and improved siggy coming soon (which could mean after Christmas)

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-26-2003
Mon, 10-04-2004 - 11:02am
Ok, I have to tell you this---I got my first bag of "to go" stuff ready, and realized it was getting close to bedtime for the twins, so I put them in the tub, and got them in their jammies, then decided that I should give them a while to get to sleep before I continued with the toy room (their bedroom is right next door). I went to the living room and watched TV for about 30 minutes, then went back to keep going through toy, and the bag was GONE! Just GONE! I thought I was losing my mind. I looked everywhere I had walked in the house, and still, NO BAG... Then I had a thought... I crept down the hall and looked at the twins bedroom door, and sure enough, it was cracked open, which it hadn't been when I left them. I stood really quietly outside the door, and didn't hear a peep, so I tiptoed in. No bag. They were curled up under their blankets pretending (badly) to be asleep. I noticed that their blankets were hanging over the end of the bed really low, so I knelt down, and peeked under the bed, and sure enough, there was a hefty bag, stuffed under the bed and hidden by their comforter! The little turkeys had snuck into the toy room and swiped it!! They popped up like I had "woken them up", and were watching with big round eyes while I dragged it out from under the bed, and when I asked them if they knew HOW that had gotten under there, they both said "OH, NO..." LOL!! Liars AND theives! I went ahead and walked the bag out to the back of the van--hopefully they weren't watching from the window, or they may try an outdoor rescue mission...

They are tooooo much sometimes...

Angela :)

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-27-1998
Mon, 10-04-2004 - 1:40pm
LOL!

my kids have found the toys in my room that are staged to go and my 5yo keeps asking me, "what are you doing with them in your room"?

I keep telling him, I wanted you to have more room in the playroom to play. Isn't it nice now in there? Its going to be a sad day here when he notices the toys are really gone!

I cannot wait to get rid of the Magic Talking Grill. That thing is so loud and so sensitive. My poor cat just about had a heart attack.

Dolli

baby growth



New and improved siggy coming soon (which could mean after Christmas)

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-26-2003
Mon, 10-04-2004 - 1:54pm
We have a race track that has two spiral towers for the cars to go down, and every time you walk past it the thing makes NASCAR inspired car sounds!!! I can't go down the hall to the bathroom at night and walk by the toyroom that I don't set the stupid thing off... I think that sometimes toy makers employ sadists....

Angela

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Mon, 10-04-2004 - 5:37pm

I'm a toy addict! What helped me was selling toys, because I spend less time in the toy stores and aisles (though I do go there once in a while)! LOL.


I've

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