Yesterday I spent some time, okay, every moment I was awake, organizing the family room toy baskets. I realize I’ve ranted about this before. My hope is when I retrieve the previous post it will give me a point of reference to just how dirty we really are. I’m hoping it was just a few months that have passed and not several years since I pitched, sliced myself on broken plastic and thought, “Who knew we had this many Mr. Potato Heads? I didn’t even know we had ONE!”
The four toy bins are now organized and accurately labelled so there will be no confusion.
- Crap.
- Broken Crap.
- Sharp!
- WTF?$#@!!
At one point I was so distraught at the mountain of toys in front of me I was tempted to post something online like “If the toys in my home are not put away in one hour, please come and pick them up. Free!” But I think serial killers love it when you make it easy for them to find you.
As is often the case, I came up with a great invention during my clean/purge that I thought I should pass along. I think this one really has some legs. “The Puzzle Bag.” I can’t tell you how many broken puzzle boxes I recycled today and consequently, tossed hundreds of puzzle pieces because there was no way I was going to sort through them all and try to piece them back together to see if we had what we needed to complete Dora’s backpack or Cinderella’s glass slipper. Hmmm, there’s irony in that last one somewhere.
I feel guilty about this and I understand a group of gasps just hushed over cyberspace with “Oh Liz!” and one very disappointed, “Oh Elizabeth, how could you throw away all of those puzzle pieces?” Simple, the WTF bin was FULL!
The puzzle bag would be a bag to slide pieces of a puzzle into as soon as it has left the original box. There would be a plastic slot on the front to place a picture of the completed puzzle or, if you’re lazy like me, to slice a piece of the box showcasing what the puzzle looks like and place it into the plastic casing. The bag would have a drawstring and a space to write the name of the puzzle and even the suggested age group. I would never lose another puzzle piece again if I owned a case of these bags.
Also, note to book publishers—please do not publish books that don’t fit on a standard book shelf either lying down or upright. I know you think Barbie’s curves are more appealing to the masses if she’s three and a half feet tall but the next time I receive a book this big, Barbie’s long legs will go the way of the puzzle piece.
While I’m trashing Barbie, why does each doll come with a hairbrush? I now have a basket assigned just to her combs. There’s no brush in the world capable of combing through that horse-hair. Not that I don’t mind watching my kids pulling her hair out by the dyed roots in an attempt to smooth it out.
Oh good—dental floss. I knew I did this for a reason.
