It says in James 4:6 “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.” So today I’m going to be humble and hope the Lord graciously blesses me with some great ideas through all of you. True confessions here. Are you ready for the horror?
My kids toys are not organized.
Oh, sure, I have them categorized in labeled bins, so if you happened to go into my basement on one of the three days per year that it was actually clean, and you could, you know, see the floor, you might be tempted to think that I don’t have such a problem with this. (Of course, if you’re a veteran mom, you might see through all my little labels and smile to yourself while you marvel at your great luck at arriving on one of the only three aforementioned days…)
BUT the fact is, that my toys are not functionally organized, and therefore, for the other 362 days out of the year (which sorta feels like always) they are a mess.
Over at Organized Everyday, the Organizing Mommy has written a brilliant post called, Organizing for the High-Brow Types. I hope you all go over and read it because, as I said, it’s brilliant. Anyway, in this post she gives a bit of a checklist for how you know when your “organizing bird” can fly off to a different part of your house:
1. Is the space used for it’s most effective CURRENT purpose? (these change all the time)
2. Are the items used MOST often in the MOST easily accessible space?
3. Are the items that are truly JUNK removed? disposed of?
4. Is it visually appealing to the eye? (Yes, I like beauty and artistic order in my home)
5. Is the space labeled/ marked for easy upkeep of the current system?
Sounds great. Sounds logical. I’m trying to apply it to my kids toy area, and suddenly I see why my current system does not work, but I don’t know how to fix it. I need some help. So, of course, I thought to myself, “Who better to ask for help than people who have mostly never even seen my house?” But seriously, I don’t really expect that any of my problems are all that new. I think most moms have faced something along these lines and come up with lots of solutions that would probably also work at my house, and I am so in need of creative inspiration.
So, will y’all brainstorm with me?
OK, so here’s my situation. My kids’ toys are in the basement. The idea is that they ALL stay in the basement unless they are being played with, and then they are supposed to be returned to the basement. (I can hear so much laughing right now. Yeah, I know, I’m totally unrealistic, and probably someone has a bridge to sell me in Brooklyn, too.) Since the kids don’t PLAY in the basement, we fail big time on Question 1. because the basement is not being used for the most effective current purpose. Why is this section of my basement a toy area? Well, it’s because we live in a VERY small house. All three kids share one bedroom, so there really isn’t a lot of room for toy storage in there. The other bedroom is a study/sewing room/guest room, so there REALLY isn’t a lot of room for toy storage in there, and that leaves the living room.
The living room is where the kids usually actually play, and that means that my decor tends towards the “tornado aftermath” theme, which can be a little unappealing, especially given the open floor plan that means that first thing when you open the front door you are greeted by a disturbing scene from a Kansas newspaper… er, my kids’ un-cleaned-up mess.
It doesn’t make much sense for the toys to be kept where they are not played with. I could insist that the children play in the basement. But there’s like nine square feet of floor space when it’s clean, and there’s no window down there, and besides, it’s hard to determine who had the Magnadoodle first if I wasn’t there as a witness.
SO, if you had my house, where would you keep the toys?
Here’s my next burning question, what would you keep the toys in? Currently, our toys are in Rubbermaid bins. This is bad. The children are not strong enough to open the bins/get the bins down from the shelves/unstack the bins to get to that inevitably bottommost bin they want. So they need help both to get the toys they want and to put their toys away. Since I am often doing trivial things like making dinner at clean up time, the toys often just get dumped on the basement floor.
Another problem with my bins is that they are organized by category (trains, dolls, crafts, etc.), and that means that in every bin the one or two favorite toys in each category are buried in amongst the non-favorite toys of the same category, leading to the constant refrain, “Mommy, where’s my blue propeller airplane?”
Both of my bin issues are failures of Question 2. because the things that are used most often are not remotely in the most accessible places. In fact, in my current system, NOTHING is really very accessible.
As for Question 3., the junk, I’m afraid we probably have a lot of junk, but I worry about throwing away treasures. How have you all managed that with your children?
The Organizing Mommy’s last two questions can probably wait until I get the first three headed in the right direction.
Thus ends my humble confession Anybody have any gracious ideas?
August 26th, 2008 at 10:38 am
It’s hard for me to say what would work best for your house, but have you checked out Ikea? They have inexpensive storage tubs/bins/cabinets that can blend into living spaces. As far as where to keep the toys, it depends on where you want (or don’t want) the majority of them to be. If you want to keep most of the toys in the basement, would it be worth designating “basement toys” and “living room toys”?
August 26th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
Boy, am I familiar with this problem! I’m going to tell you what I’d do but please don’t think for a minute that I’ve got this situation under control at my house! This is just an idea!
I would divide all the toys into “stations” - a lego station, a dress up station, a cars and race track station, a music station, etc…whatever you have at your house. Put each group of toys into its own container. Rubbermaid would be fine, but if you cover them with fabric or use containers that match your decor, then leaving them out wouldn’t be a problem. Anyway. I would store them in the basement and bring one box up each morning (possibly one per child depending on how well they’ll play together). Then that’s it for the morning - no going downstairs for more toys. At lunch they can put everything back into the right box and you can take them back downstairs. After nap time, you can bring up new toys or maybe do something else - that’s when we usually head outside or draw or read or whatever. I think the key is to keep the containers fairly small and not keep tons of toys to begin with. We recently cleaned out my daughters babydoll accessories box and parred down. I took the extras to the nursery at church so she can still occasionally play with them. That made getting rid of them a little easier.
I’m so sorry to have taken up so much room! Toy organization is (obviously) one of my obsessions, and yet my toy room still looks like ToysRUs exploded in here!
I love you blog, by the way!
August 26th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
I tend to agree with Shannon M. on several points. First, triage. . . I blogged about this earlier in the summer at http://bonavita.wordpress.com/2008/05/13/great-expectations/. Children just do not need as many toys and treasures as we think.
Secondly, remember, you are the boss - so decide what and where your children can play. Limit the toys that they are playing with at any one time to a few items. Teach them to help clean their play area, wherever it may be, before moving on to the next toy or game. Enjoy pick-up time 2 or 3 times per day with your children. This will become a habit.
The main point to remember is to pare down your “stuff”. Oh, and on the “keepsake, treasures”…you need to deal with this early or it will overwhelm you. Keep only a few, select treasures per child. I know this sounds heartless, but it will bring peace and order to your home. I had to learn that less truly is more even to children (quality not quantity) when we lived in a 2 1/2 bedroom, 1 bath home with 7 children. It was a lovely wonderful experience AFTER I learned to deal with “stuff”.
August 26th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
I’ve noticed that children like to overlap types of toys. For example, a child might build a Lego bed for a doll. So it is frustrating for a child to have to stick to one type of toy at a time. On the other hand, you wouldn’t want to give a child a bin of puzzles or games, as these should be played with one at a time.
You could try putting the mostly unused things in the labeled bins, which can be stacked and put out of the way. Puzzles and games should not be within reach. Then give each child his/her own bin. That way, you can see what is really being played with. Over time, you can get rid of things that aren’t being played with, when the children forget about them.
Another thing I did when my children were small was to keep out only a certain amount of toys (we lived in a small space, too) and put the rest away. Later, I changed out some toys, putting some away and bringing out the forgotten ones, which were then played with as if they were new.
All too soon, they outgrew most of their toys and then I donated them to charity. I wish now that I had kept a few of the dolls and most of the books for my future grandchildren, though. Stuffed animals generally didn’t have as much play value, unless one was the major object of affection, of course!
Children usually want to be near Mom, unless they want to get into trouble. So, maybe think of the basement room as a storage area and let them have a limited amount of toys in their own bins, upstairs, to be cleaned up before bed. My children enjoyed racing against a timer. It helps for them to have a sort of reward to look forward to afterwards, too, such as a bedtime story, a game of hide and seek with Dad or a video, etc.
I think plastic bins are pretty ugly. If you can find the right-sized baskets with a handle, they would not look unattractive lined up on the floor.
Now, the big things, like doll furniture and train sets, well, those are a problem when children don’t have their own room or space to keep things set up. We were able to arrange things so that our elder daughter had a tiny room in the basement when she was old enough. Perhaps the sewing/office/guest room could be used for a child, instead, until your circumstances change.
August 26th, 2008 at 8:21 pm
Okay, so you know what my house looks like, and you were busy playing with the toys when you were little. Do you want my honest opinion? Here it is. Kids like to play close to Mom, and that’s a good thing, cause then you have at least half a clue about who stole the magnadoodle from whom. My house was organized about one day a year: the day I finished spring house cleaning. That left 364 days when I greeted visitors with embarrassed comments like, “Oh, hi! Just kick a path through the toys and come on in.” I was constantly embarrassed and felt like a failure every day. We had a “toy pit” in the basement at one house that worked pretty well. It was about a 10X10 foot carpeted area full of toys. I got the idea from the kids’ pediatrician’s office. All their favorite toys ended up in there, and as long as they were in the pit, that was close enough. Of course, this doesn’t work for legos and other many piece toy sets. They need their own containers…but hopefully with lids that can come off without breaking your fingers.
Looking back, I’m no longer mortified. Now I just say, “Being humbled is a good thing.” What was I expecting, anyway? Picking up, if it’s not too hard, once a day before Dad comes home for the night is a good routine, but I’d say keep the tops off the cartons and just leave them lined up in the living room. If you’re having some amazing visitors (like the president of your hubby’s company), then take them all downstairs for the day. Better to truck them down once a month (or three times a year) then have to track up and down the stairs a zillion times to help the kids find what they need.
Do you remember the little plaque I always kept above the crib?
“Cleaning and scrubbing can wait for tomorrow,
For children grow up, I’ve learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down cobwebs, and dust go to sleep.
I’m rocking my baby, and babies don’t keep.
August 27th, 2008 at 4:14 am
Ok, I live in the UK in a VERY small house (I say that because often what American’s call small houses are huge compared to ours lol!!) Meaning no disrespect to American’s - I have many who are very good friends!
All of our children sleep in one pretty small bedroom, so there’s no real room for storing toys in there, that just leaves our bedroom upstairs and a very small bathroom and there’s really no room there either. Downstairs we just have the living room and kitchen (no basement or anything) so we really do LIVE and homeschool in our living room, so any toys the children play with are in the living room. We de-clutter regularly and if the toys aren’t being used they go, I don’t particularly like the look of plastic containers in the living room, so we use baskets with handles to store toys in - they are placed strategically under the coffee table, on/under the piano, in the corner. We have to be really strict in when they’ve finished playing with something it goes away in the basket before another toy comes out or as you say the house looks like a bomb site (not great for making guests feel welcome!) Our house is clean/tidy however most very definitely lived in by a family. At the end of each day the children do a sweep of the living room, putting toys in the baskets and putting the baskets in their places so the house is de-cluttered for dad returning from work, so he can relax.
Hope you decide on what will work best for your family and your situation.
Blessings
Vicki
August 27th, 2008 at 4:18 am
Just had a thought do you read Jewels blog http://eyesofwonder.typepad.com/my_weblog/ they did live in a lovely little house with 10 children, she writes beautifully and has some lovely photo’s of her family.
August 27th, 2008 at 8:20 am
I was going to suggest Sabine’s solution. We don’t have a basement but I do a modified version of this system. We have a pretty basketry toy box that I bought from basketlady.com. The boy’s toys live there…excepting certain things which I box up: legos, blocks, the train set, drawing implements… Those things are in small boxes and labeled but, I still don’t know where to store them. Right now they live scattered around the house in different places. As for paring down the toys…I do that fairly ruthlessly at least twice a year, Seasonal Scrub, spring and fall. It sounds intimidating but, I’ve found that there is nearly always a class of things that are easy to identify as cullables: the broken toys, toys I don’t like my kids playing with that the lady at McDonald’s gave them, things we have duplicates of, stuff my kids never, ever use…etc. Use your own elimination system and then you can pare down a few things for sure.
I also remember as my mama taught me, sending things to Goodwill isn’t a mark of being un-frugal….its a way to share what God’s given you with people around you. Stores like Goodwill and Salvation Army, and those like you and I who bring them donations make things available to people who could otherwise never afford them. That seems like a pretty godly thing to be a part of to me.
I’m not much help on the attachment to special items, my kids aren’t really old enough yet.
August 27th, 2008 at 9:32 am
I am so enjoying everyone’s ideas, and it’s very encouraging to know that I’m not the only one who has to figure these things out. (I suspected that was true when I wrote the post, but it is nice to know for sure.)
And I just want everyone to know, Vicki is right, Jewels’ blog is beautiful! I’m sure I will be visiting often.
August 27th, 2008 at 11:01 am
This looks to be a very common issue for moms, doesn’t it?
Our upper duplex is, obviously, not fitted with a basement storage area, but I use the laundry room in the same manner you described. All the other ladies’ suggestions are good, the one that I would add is the use of old dressers for storage. This is particularly good for toys of small pieces (i.e. lego) and craft items. The drawers keep the items contained just as well as a bin, but kids can get into it with more ease (both opening and putting away) - the bins tends to get stacked and then it is harder to use them.
It is a never ending task involved in keeping our homes - I agree with Kathi A. in that sometimes we just need to be more humble when we have visitors. After all, we can’t hide the fact that the kids live with us! ;o)
August 28th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
Wow, thanks for the great “linking” Mrs. P. I like all of the suggestions. In a nutshell, see if your hubby will let you invest in something pretty–classy for the livingroom that keeps toys for you. If your self esteem is in the toilet by having a messy house, it may be worth the investment of helping kids keep things under control. You have to understand how you’re wired also. Even though I write a lot about organizing, I do not consider it to be the end-all be-all of life. Having Jesus, having happy kids, having enough sleep and food are far more important in the big picture.
You probably don’t want the kids to play in the basement by themselves, right? You probably want some of the toys upstairs, especially in the winter. So, let’s see if we can make it pretty–classy, helpful and happy. Make the livingroom toys be on a constant rotation–every 2 months or every week change them out. If child 1 wants to always combine a lego car with an alligator and a few blocks–fine. Just throw them in a bag together. I realize this is “your sphere” and this is “your job” to keep this going. But anyone who judges you for having toys all over the place while you’re raising children probably doesn’t understand the big picture of child raising. I have had people come into my house and say “this looks cluttery to me”.. (recently. not even way back when I had an excuse).. And then I just laugh out loud and say, “that’s good compared to what is was before!” I decided WAY BACK to not let people’s opinions get in the way of my self esteem.. whatever that is…
November 8th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
I’ve only just found your website today and I love it. Perhaps you are no longer looking at comments on this post but it so reminded me of when my first two children were young and our house was small that I wanted to answer you. We used the rubbermaid plan too, which I don’t think is all bad, particularly since you have a basement to hide the bins. The system I used to keep things in order was to ROTATE the bins. For a few days (or however long I determined) the boys were allowed to play with only the toys in one bin. I did this to minimize the mess, but there ended up being several built in bonuses. Clean up was simple: everything went back into one bin and the bin was put in the closet (or basement, in your case). There was no back and forth (up and down the stairs) changing of toys according to the whims of the children. I had 6 or 7 bins, so by the time an old bin came into circulation again, the toys had a novel feel to them and the children were more interested in playing with them. (I always kept a variety in one bin - at least one ball, one puzzle, one artsy thing, a couple stuffed animals-you get the idea). It worked nicely for us; I hope it’s a helpful idea to you.
November 8th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
Cynthia,
Thanks for your encouraging words and ideas! It was great to hear from you. (I always see all new comments, so don’t worry about commenting on old posts.)