Is there a room in your house that doesn’t have a single toy in it?
Yesterday I realized that the only place in our home that has not been infiltrated by my preschooler’s toys is the laundry room. And that room only qualifies as the “winner” if I don’t count the tiny pile of plastic animals I extracted from my daughter’s pockets the other day. The jungle creatures have temporarily set up residence on top of the dryer.
The rest of our abode looks like the inside of a daycare facility. There are piles of plastic dinosaurs in the hallway, mounds of mini marsupials in the bathroom, a menagerie of stuffed animals in the bedrooms, plus, doll house accessories, puzzle pieces, fake food, toy cars, baby doll strollers, board games, Elmo’s camera, a bowling set, and a litany of plastic paraphernalia in other parts of our already cramped quarters. Heck, I even found some stray plastic cherries in the master bathroom last night (I assume they belong in the Hi Ho Cherry-O box).
Which is not to say that we live in a pigsty. I pride myself on being tidy, and have the cute (and costly) toy organizers to prove it, but no matter how incredibly sophisticated the storage unit, if you have a child who withdraws more than she deposits, then even those architecturally amazing and aesthetically pleasing units do nothing more than take up precious space as well.
Some parents have strict rules about toys infiltrating space beyond the playroom. One of my best friends has declared toy-free zones in her home. Her 5-year-old son knows better than to drag one of his trains into mommy and daddy’s bedroom, and he wouldn’t think of trotting his toy pony into the kitchen.
My house… not so much.
My daughter makes such regular visits to the kitchen with her toys that I finally placed a plastic tub on one of the counters just to make clean up easier for me. Her routine: Stroll into the kitchen, deposit whatever is in her hand at the time, and leave with a snack. I then place the toy into the tub and she plays with it again during her next visit. Sometimes she’ll play with the toys on the counter while she watches me prepare meals.
Toy-free zone? What’s that?
I have another friend (a kindergarten teacher turned stay at home mom), who does not allow more than one toy to be taken out at a single time. For example, if her son is playing with his toy tractor and then decides that he wants to play with his LEGOS he must return the tractor to its designated spot on the toy shelf before taking out the LEGO container.
I was so impressed by the clean-up method that I tried implementing it in our home.
Needless to say it didn’t go over well.
Honestly, I’m not up for the fight. My kid’s toys roam free; there are no rooms that are off limits. Rather, my rule is simple: My daughter can have as much space to play with her toys as we have available from the time she wakes up until precisely 5 p.m. When the clock strikes 5, the toys are returned to their respective storage units, dinner is made and eaten, baths are taken, stories are read, and then it’s lights out.
So, basically, I have about two hours per day that I can walk down the hall without dodging balls and tripping over talking triceratops.
It works… for now.
Do you have designated toy-free zones in your home?
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