It's the toys!

Well, I thought about it for a couple of days but the toys in the living room had to be the pile that I was going to start with. It is a huge job that I knew would be hindered by the toddler, so it really was going to be jumping in the deep end.

The decider was that it is Monkey Madam's birthday in a couple of weeks and therefore another pile of new toys to try and fit in the house so I decided it made sense to clear out the existing ones to make room for the new. I have tried to sort them out in the past but find it quite difficult to do. I look at expensive toys or good quality toys that she doesn't use much and I think we should keep them but then want to throw out all the cheap plastic rubbish that she plays with all the time and then I feel like a bad mum. Then I came across this blog entry http://smallnotebook.org/2010/01/04/managing-your-pre-schoolers-toy-collection/. Sounds like the perfect solution to dealing with it, let the toddler decide.

So, this afternoon I came home from picking up Monkey Madam from my Mum's and was determined we were going to start. I found a large box and we slowly, very slowly, went through all the toy drawers and mountain of toys off the floor in the living room. The large box is now nearly full but I do feel that the toddler has not always chosen wisely but they won't be going forever, they are just going on "holiday to the loft". I might even be really organised and schedule a date on my calendar for bringing them down and going through them again.

The living room looks like a war zone at the moment with toys everywhere, now just waiting for stage 2 of the toy clearance. This involves waiting for Monkey Madam to go to bed so that I can clear through them again and throw away all the broken and cheap rubbish bits that we have 3 huge boxes of.

It isn't over yet but it is a start