The Swin Life: Toys Everywhere

I'm serious when I say that we have toys everywhere. I have even loaned out toys to friends and we are still on toy overload here. I have to honestly say that we didn't buy even half of them. We bought some of them but not many.

Here's what comes to mind when I think of the toys we have. Multiple fire trucks of all sizes, almost all the male planes from the planes movie, helicopters, monster trucks big and small, almost all the cars movie cars with duplicates, blocks of all sizes, two work benches, tools both plastic and wooden, cars did I mention cars there are everywhere, trains- geotrax and wooden, doctor supplies, duplo legos hundreds (I know it will get worse as he gets older), hats lot of hats and musical instruments! That doesn't even cover everything or the garage full of stuff we have outside.

I feel like I'm complaining, I'm not, I'm very grateful that he has tons of people that love him and buy toys for him. I'm also grateful that they only do so at holidays. My purpose and point today is how many is too many and how to handle all of them. Seriously.

Do all kids have this many toys? I feel like the answer is no but some of his friends have this many toys or close. What is the point of so many toys? I know he loves them and they keep him entertained while I do things (like blog) but isn't just half as many enough.

I try to handle the massive amounts of toys by switching them out but come on lets be honest, that doesn't happen very often and if I box them up they stay boxed up! I have created a system of rotation lately that is helpful. I have these handy shelves (two of them). I put one in his closet and the other out in his room. I switch the bins from the closet to his bedroom so that he isn't playing with the same toys all the time. Sometimes its as simple as trading just a few bins or as complex as trading them all out. I normally trade when I super clean and organize his room once a month. He can get the toys from his closet whenever he wants but he seems to play with stuff thats out in his room most often. Rotating the bins from closet to room is so much easier than boxing up stuff and then getting other stuff out. I also go through and eliminate toys that he has either outgrown or doesn't ever play with. At this age and stage it is getting easier to eliminate toys that are "babyish" but not toys that he doesn't play with. I think somehow he manages to touch every toy he has but mostly when friends are over.

Having friends over is what makes me think about the massive amount of toys we have. Right now I am surrounded by monster trucks, cars, and planes. I think I see a toy I didn't even know we had!

By the end of our play time inside today the three boys that were playing had every car, truck, plane, and track we own out. My house was a disaster area but I loved every minute of it! It was so fun to build the track for them to all play with a train on. Even though they got really loud and rough it was still so awesome to watch them race the bigger vehicles all over the house. (Nothing was broken on anyone or in my house!) They all played so well together and played will all the toys, so maybe that's why we have so many! If it weren't for having 4 different geotrax train options how would they have ever gotten along all day! Haha really though three year olds and sharing really is a tough concept! They did do a great job at helping clean up all the toys before we went to play outside though. I gave each one a bucket and a toy to pick up "you put all the planes in this bucket" and with a little help from my friend we had everything put away in no time at all! Doesn't get much better! (I also don't have to reorganize and rotate toys now!)

As I started this today I was actually hating the fact that we have a million toys but I think I've come to appreciate them in the right moment. I don't think that having as many as we do is necessary but I also don't know how to determine the appropriate number. My guess is that there really isn't one. I try to give toys away or loan them out as often as I can. I even throw away or recycle broken toys if they can't be fixed. I really just wish I had more space to store them! Operation toy room coming soon stay tuned!