Down at the bottom of the toy-box

Somedays you have to be ruthless, and in a quiet child-free moment you’ve got to clean it and mean it.

I am very lucky in what I do, I look after little kids, I make a nurturing environment, and I play; a lot. But this brings play-detritus. If you’ve kids you’ll have it too, check in the bottom of the toy box, or the chest, or the cupboard and you’ll find little bits of miscellaneous plastic. Quite often, and for no particular reason, it’ll contain at least one florescent yellow bit, a minimum of two crayons, a magnetic fishing set and - more insidiously - free junk toys from junk food outlets that you don’t visit.

The problem is that amongst this play-detritus is bound to be that tiny doo-dah or wotsit, that is need to activate the Mighty-Mega-Metal-Mummy-Monkey™ or something and you’re bound to throw it. Thus becoming a meanie forever, or at least as long as childhood memory lasts. From such bitter experiences I’ve developed the T.T.T.B (two tubs, two bags) system, which - I’m hoping - can be extended not just to cover toys, but Mrs. Welikeplay’s shoe collection and even yarn stash.

Tub 1
For the instantly recognisable. Things like lego blocks/heads, magnetic fishing sets and jacks.

Tub 2
For the odd and unusual and the things that you can’t honestly be bothered to sort. This it to be given to the kids to sort through, they’ll know which wotsit goes with the aforementioned Mighty-Mega-Metal-Mummy-Monkey™ and which jigsaw piece goes in which box. There’s got to be at least an hours of entertainment here.

Bag 1
For the complete but junk toys that might be able to be offloaded at the local charity store… though beware, I’m fairly confident I have two of these bags sitting in the attic from before we moved two years back.

Bag 2
Bin it. Half crayons, lint, perhaps anything with the Golden Arches probably™ed on it’s label.

There must be better ways to fill child free moments.
TTFN with your TTTB… enjoy.

tag... play, toys