Thursday, October 10, 2013

Moving Right Along: Packing up Toys & Preserving My Kids' Brains


I’m popping in really quick today for a mini-post on packing up toys. (This is almost like I’m failing at the 31 Days Challenge, but not quite)
I mentioned here that I think toys should be one of the first things you pack up. I packed up dress-up clothes about three weeks before we moved and didn’t get one request for them until we had been in the new place for a while. This obviously wouldn’t work for every family; my kids aren’t nuts about playing dress-up like my sister’s some people’s kids. : )
It looks like Judah's playing dress-up here, but he's really just squirrel-watching. With protective eye gear.
Books got packed up. I left out maybe ten books for the kiddos and then the rest with in small tubs along with coloring books. I also went through the books as I was packing them and got rid of any that were torn, beat up or just held no interest for my kiddos.
The Boy has a gift for getting books out. He's a stealth mess maker.
Play-Doh got thrown away. There. I said it. The Play-Doh that we had was either dried up and crusty or it was all mixed together so much it just looked brown. Lame. Also, I hate Play-Doh, but I keep telling myself that didn’t influence my pitching decision too much. (I’m in denial. Leave me alone.)
Get in the box, Mrs. Potato Head. Go quietly, ma'am. We don't want any trouble.
I wish I could tell you that I had some perfect system to decide how many toys I left out for my kids to play with, but that’s not true. You want to know my secret? I figured that even if I packed up every.single.toy. in the playroom there would be more throughout the house that would be left out for their use. I was right. Worked like a charm.
If you can pack up the major categories like dress-up, books, Legos, dollhouse, toy kitchen, etc. then the rest should just fall into place. And I really think that the fewer ‘toys’ my kids have, the more creative they are forced to be. That’s how I keep their brains from melting out their noses. You’re welcome : )

2 comments:

  1. Definitely hard to do some packing when you've got kids around wanting one thing or the other that you have to dig out. I think using clear plastic tubs is a good idea because it's easier to find whatever book or toy they're looking for. As for everything else packed away in a box, you just have to hope that they won't look for them any time soon. Haha!

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  2. Clay's got a point. It’s hard to pack things up if you’re going to haul things out again. Anyway, it’s much better if you label each box with what’s gonna see inside.

    Thelma @QualityStrapping.com

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