The great toy trade

I am just like so many of my friends who has a house that has exploded with toys.  When I was pregnant with my first child I was living in a 700 sq ft apartment in San Francisco and swore the baby's things would NOT take over my house.  Now, 3 1/2 years later I am in a much larger house and my kids toys HAVE taken over most of it.  The thing is, they only play with very little of them.  Most of the toys have been put in bins.  Once in a while, the girls with dig through the bins to find a long forgotten toy and then play with it for hours.  Otherwise, many of the toys sit, thrown in the bin ... waiting.  

I found a tip in a book, The Household Manager Takes Charge that I love.  Well, the whole book is full of tips that I love.   One of them is to rotate toys.  Take half of the kids toys, put them in a box and then in storage.  About a week, month or whenever later, swap those toys with the toys you had out.  Now, when I did this I didn't do HALF, but about one diaper box full of toys.  Last night I did the swap.  Even I had forgotten about a few of the toys I put up.  I set a few things out on the coffee table and went to bed.

The girls have been up for over two hours.  When they came downstairs you would have thought it was Christmas!!  They ran to the toys and the oldest was shouting I forgot about this toy!  Mommy you found my toy!  They didn't notice anything was missing either.  They are still playing with (and fighting over) their new found toys.  

I have heard that when kids see too many things the toys are just "lost".  Think of looking at a ice cream menu of 30+ flavors ... it is overwhelming!  How do you choose?  Same with kids and toys.  Just too many choices.  

This was also a great opportunity for me to purge.  I spent about an hour and a half going through the toys in our "family / play room" I threw out the doll that was a broken hand-me-down that had these freakish eyes that creeped me out, coloring books that had been colored on every page,  and 

random "junk".  

So many things accomplished during this 90 minutes after the kids went to bed.  Room cleaned, toys purged, organized and stashed.  I even made my kids' day by giving them "new" toys.  Give it a try.  I would love to hear how it works for your family!

Am I crazy???

This is one of those weeks.  Last week was one of those weeks too ... I am busy.  I work part time at a hotel (but these two weeks it has been 30+ hours each!), am a mom of 3 under 4, trying to start a business & now maintain a blog.  What am I thinking??

There is so much time in all media and in everyday conversation about finding balance.  Trying to manage all of the balls that we throw in the air.  Like a juggler, we will at some point drop one of those balls, and at times drop them all.  But, like anyone who is learning something, we must pick the balls back up & try again.

I wrote a blog entry on Sunday.  I was raving about roast chicken.  How it is a true crowd pleaser, so easy to make, and is great for leftovers too.  I saved it to be posted after my family enjoyed said chicken.  You didn't read it?  Well, yeah ... I didn't post it.  I was doing 20 things at the time & the chicken got pulled out of the oven a little too early.  It was still good, but thanks to my chef husband was put back into the oven & cooked a little more, dinner a little late.  I was so frustrated with myself I deleted the blog.  I do think that a roast chicken is an amazing dinner and yes, it is quite easy to make ... it just takes longer than I always think.  Just google roast chicken & find a simple recipe and try it.

I was thinking about all of the things I do.  Somethings I HAVE to do, others I should do & some I do because I want to.  I was also thinking about the women who have so many more things on their have to do list.  What about the women who HAVE to go get water every day?  How about the woman running a farm who HAS to get up at 4am to milk the cows?  I really am blessed.  When I look at all of the "undone" things in my life I think, maybe I need to mentally move them over to my HAVE to do ... then I'll get them done.  I am really good at finding things to do (like Facebook & just random searching on the internet) to fill my "spare" time.

I remember complaining to my 87 year old grandmother that I needed a break.  I asked her if she felt this way when she was raising her kids (and at one time her sister's kids too ... 4 kids under 3, plus 3 others.) she said no.  It just wasn't a possibility, she just didn't think about it.  I think that I am a bit spoiled.  I slack where I shouldn't and complain a little too much.  I am going to try an experiment (after I get though this week ...).  I will try harder to use every minute to my advantage.  If I find myself "wasting" time I will redirect myself to a project / task that needs to be done.  And moms ... you know that there is ALWAYS a ton of projects to be done!!  I will try & whistle while I work (though I can't whistle at all)