Tag Archives: family

I did another round of purging in William’s room. I thought about doing it without the kids, but in the end decided to have them involved in the process. And they were excellent! William, who usually chews on things a long time before making a decision was brief and to the point – yes (keep), no (get rid of) or Katie’s. Katie was more of a “keeper”, but she did release a lot of things also. We purged a whole bin of items and cleared out a whole 5-shelf bookcase.

Dealing with their toys has made me realize several things:

1.Less toys is better than more toys. We uncovered so many toys they had forgotten about and loved, buried under toys they immediately said “throw away.” And there were so many useless figurines (from Nana) that they truly didn’t even like – a set of frog figurines springs to mind – Katie said they scared her. I had kept them because they came from Nana but I allowed the children to release themselves from these hideous creatures. I will never make them keep something  just because of who gave it to them.

Kids and Boxes

2. Kids don’t actually need toys. Recently I watched Katie playing with two marbles and a step stool. She would release the marbles on top of the stool and see which one “won” the race by falling over the edge first. Seriously. Ten million toys in her room and this is how she chooses to entertain herself. Last year my kids fell in love with a box that Katie’s bed came in. They used it as a rocket, an elevator,a boat, and a coffin(because they were vampires). They used markers and stickers to decorate it.  They wailed when I would mutter about throwing it away. That box stayed with us until it fell apart from so much use.

3. Simple is better. So many toys these days are so narrow and specific and only allow kids to do/make one thing. I was looking at Legos recently and they are not the Legos of my youth. It’s all about kits that make specific things. Crayola is no longer about crayons, it’s about Color Wonder this and Glow Explosion that. And the kids have been gifted a ton of that stuff – and they play with it once and never touch it again – crayons and markers they go back to day in and day out.

4. I’m over buying them toys for a while. Katie’s birthday was Tuesday and today I redecorated her room as her present. It’s now filled with a whole bunch of rockstar/punk princess stuff. She loves it. She and William are actually in her room playing right now – they usually spend most of their play time in his room.  We’ll see what happens with Christmas – I’m thinking buying them bikes might be just what Santa ordered.

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