I’ve noticed that if they get characters it tends to limit how they use the toy.

First thing we do, let’s kill all the Elmos!

The Elmo crap is amazingly limited in scope.

My daughter is amazingly good about this. This year she’s kind of looking forward to it because she has heard plenty about the kids in our area who lost all their toys to fire some weeks back. But having so many toys means my kids cannot possibly play with all of them, and so it ends up as a huge mess.

I always tell people that if they toy is educational, active or encourages creative play, it’s probably a good choice. If it’s characters from one show or another, think more carefully on it. I much prefer toys without licensed characters on them. I’ve noticed that if they get characters it tends to limit how they use the toy.

As for the neverending pile of clutter, I hear you. We have a clothing/toy dump and major housecleaning event during one weekend each fall before we do our back-to-school shopping. It’s frightening how much crap we end up getting rid of. It’s even more frightening how much crap we end up keeping. One thing I’ve started doing in collecting the toys I know my kids won’t play with before they’re opened, and storing them in a large box in the attic. Around the holidays, I take them to a Toys for Tots donation bin so they can go to children who would appreciate them. This is especially necessary with my mother-in-law who, for whatever reason, thinks that my daughter needs a constant supply of frilly baby dolls and china tea sets (which she doesn’t even like) and that my son needs to own every stuffed animal and toy truck in the universe (he likes those, but we only have so much space).

This year we’re asking the grandparents to take what they would have spent on toys and give our kids a savings bond or contribute to their college funds. If they want to give them a small toy, fine, but we’re pleading for no more than one.

Got to make room for the new toys she’s bound to get for Xmas. (plus her birthday New Year’s Eve, so double toys).

I find that completely comforting, as it suggests that neatness is set at a very young age, and the fact that I am messy beyond belief does not, in fact, suggest that I am a lousy human being.

My 16-month-old has started organizing my closet and carrying things from the dish washer to the cabinet in which they belong.

I am in love.

One time, around the time my older son was 4, I sorted through the toy’s in his room. I try to cull out non-age-appropriate toys and leave stuff in his room that he’s actually going to play with (although this is always a losing battle.) Anyhow, I filled one whole garbage bag with nothing but the toys you get in fast food kid’s meals. Which not only grossed me out because I really didn’t think we ate out at fast food restaurants that much (I’m no health nut but still…. ) but also because that was a lot of CRAP that just came from no where.

Needless to say, that didn’t work. In fact, they were pissed off. Never try to take away someone’s right to make themselves feel better by spending money on a useless item for your child. Lesson learned.

And yeah, we’ve bought our kids very few toys, but they still ended up with incredible amounts of crap. Now that they’re older, their holiday gifts tend to be airline tickets to visit grandma to go ski-ing with their cousins.