The Toy Room
About a nine months ago I sat down with my two girls – Dylan, the oldest, was 8, and Lauren 5. I was trying to figure out a way to get them to clean up their toy room. See they used to share one room and use the other as basically a big giant toy box. It was completely full with… stuff. All the stuff a Nickelodian-Cartoon Network-Disney Channel-watching-kid could want AND it’s a complete disaster.
So I started out by relating what it was like when I was a kid. Uncle Joe, and I each had a toy box. That’s it. I mean, we kept games on the shelf in the closet and we had one small drawer in our dresser for “junk”, but the toy box was pretty much it.
Dylan and Lauren weren’t too impressed. So I laid out the options as I saw them. First, we could do what my parents did. Spankings until things got done. “I don’t believe in spankings”, I said, “but I know they’re effective.” Imagine if every time you didn’t pick something up, you got a spanking. “Well how hard would you hit?”, asks Dylan the 8-year old. “Pretty darn hard.” “I don’t think that’s a good idea”, says Lauren my 5-year old.
So the next option I lay out is limiting the amount of stuff they have. “See, If you only have two toys, the most it could get messed up is the two toys could be on the floor.” “So in order to clean it all up, all you’d have to do is grab one in each hand and stack them.” Pretty simple. “Only two toys?”, says Dylan. “Yeah, I’m not saying I like this option either, but you’ve got to admit it would work.”
"So how about I say, ’please clean up the toy room’ and you say, ‘Okay dad.’” “That sounds good to me”, says Lauren. “I don’t like it”, Dylan says. “Well, do you have any other ideas?” “We could hire a maid.” “Do you know how much a maid costs?”, I say. – pause- “About as much as cable TV, just to come one time.”, I add. “Think about it, no Nickleodian, no Cartoon Network, no Disney Channel, just to have a maid come once each month for a couple of hours.” “Well you could make more money.” “Listen,” I say, “I wouldn’t hire you a maid if I made more money than Bill Gates.” “I will never ever hire a maid to clean up your toys, ever.” “Just get that thought out of your mind. “How much money does Bill Gates make?” asks Dylan. “I don’t know, more than he knows what to do with.” “He invented computers, didn’t he?” “No he did not”, I say. “He just rips off other people’s ideas and makes money from them, but that’s not the point.” “You’re not getting a maid.”
"Well I think we should go with the last option”, says Lauren. “You mean the one where you girls just clean up?” “Yeah.” “I think so too unless you can think of anything else – besides a maid.” Dylan says, “Why don’t we leave it like it is?” “Because it’s defiantly going to get cleaned up, I’m just trying to figure out what the best way is.” “So why don’t we start with the Barbie box.”
Okay I admit it. I let my girls play with Barbies. Anyone who tells you “I don’t let my kids play with those things” is full of it. You can’t keep them away from the stupid things. My family is vegetarian and I can’t keep them away from McDonalds. It’s crazy. We’re in there ordering cheeseburgers without the meat.
Anyway, the Barbie Box is a huge plastic bin filled with about 8 cubic feet of Barbies and Barbie stuff. In fact, it’s more than completely full, it’s overflowing. “Think about that Barbie box, it’s jam-packed with junk.” “You don’t even know what half of that stuff is.” “Let’s make two piles; one to keep, one to give away.” “Well how much do we keep?” Dylan asks. “How about two Barbies each plus some extra clothes and stuff.” “Only two Barbies?!” “Sure.” “How many Barbies can you play with at one time anyway?” “You’ve only got two hands.” “Those things don’t even stand up by themselves or anything.” “But dad, I don’t want to give up my Aaron Carter Barbie and that would only leave one other Barbie.” “Okay” I say, “Make the two piles and put what you want in the keep pile, and then you can make a proposal.” “Dad what’s a proposal?” “I don’t want to marry any of them,” my smart-aliky 8-year old asks. “A proposal”, I say, “is when your done making the piles you give me good reasons why all of the things in the keep pile should get to stay.”
So the girls go off to make their piles. Lauren comes out to get help untangling things from Barbie’s hair. One of the dolls she brings me has bicycle handlebars so incredibly entwined in its hair that I just have to cut them out. Finally they emerge. They’ve still got way too many Barbies so I try to select a cross section. Two boys, two brown haired girls, one African-American girl, and one blonde girl. The girls protest. They each have a favorite blonde doll that didn’t make the cut. So I ask them to make substitutions but then they want to get rid of all the brown dolls. “What are there, only blonde people in Barbie world?” They’re not budging so, I finally give in and now we have a total of eight Barbies, only three of which are blonde. Not too bad I think.
“Is this all of it?” “Are you sure?” “Let’s go take a look.” So we go into the toy room. I wade through the sea of crap and I look in the Barbie box and it still has about eight solid inches of choking hazards filling the bottom of the box. “Oh, we don’t need any of those things”, they say. Cool.
Then the thing that confirms that they have way too many toys happens. As I’m moving the box I notice that there are four other boxes against the wall that were behind the Barbie box. They’re two brand new Barbies and two Barbie playsets that are not even opened. Completely forgotten about in the mountain of toys since Christmas. Almost three whole months they have layed there untouched. “Can we open those!” “What are you, crazy?” “I’m putting these over here and we’re not talking about them right now.”
I’m thinking birthday presents if they’re lucky.