The Great Toy Shift

For some inexplicable reason, toys are equated with their geographical space. We keep our quiet toys, our intelligence-increasing toys, our creative juices toys up in the playroom. The loud and banging, althletic, jump-around, burn energy toys all go in the basement. And despite the fact that our house could be a satellite store for Toys R Us, my boys still get bored with all that they have. They whine they have nothing to play with, I pull toy after toy off the shelves, and they just dismiss me with a wave.

But something strange happened when we put up our Christmas tree in the playroom. There was no longer room for the toybox, so we brought it downstairs for the Christmas season. Suddenly my boys thought it was a brand new present, and they opened up the top and began playing with toys as if they had never seen them before. They were entirely entertained while we decorated the tree.

Thus began the thought process. Fast forward to just a few days after Christmas. Together the boys have now accumulated an ungodly amount of new toys and play items. Our shelves now explode with old and new toys combined. There's so much to play with, they don't even know where to start. But I, a wise mother beyond my youthful years, know that a time is coming sometime in February/March when Old Man Winter is refusing to leave, when he doesn't allow us to safely leave the house, and when we all have cabin fever so bad we are afraid we might just kill each other (or at least mame or seriously injur).

Hence the Great Toy Shift of 2009. Together the boys and I spent an entire morning moving toys from floor to floor: from the playroom to their bedrooms, from their bedrooms to the basement, from the basement to the playroom. Actually, I should say that the boys and I battled an entire morning. As I attempted to remove the toys that currently don't capture their desire, they suddenly found a new interest in those same toys. Finally, with a little distraction, I was able to sneak the overflowing laundry basket full of toys up to the attic. Maybe I will, in pure desperation, seek their fun and frivolity in the bleak mid-winter. Or maybe we will come to the grand realization that we have more than enough toys and can get rid of the extras in the attic.

Except for the baby toys. Who KNOWS what I will need to do with them. But that's a whole other topic for an entirely different day...