Toy Cleansing

There must be a mathematical formula that states that when you have children living in your household, the amount of toys that takes over your living space is quadrupled per child, even if you don't buy toys. It's got to be proven somewhere. I swear, toys multiply faster than rabbits. Slot A into slot B and all that jazz. So when you have three children, you have enough toys to keep an orphanage happily entertained for years.

And if you are a parent, you KNOW you take your life and sanity into your very own hands if you ever try to do a toy cleansing while a child is within 5 miles of your house. They may not hear you yelling at them to clean their room when they are ten feet away from you, but the moment your hand even slightly brushes against a plastic car with the thought of maybe tossing it into the trash, the kids are on your ass glaring down at you as if you just killed their puppy. You just can't win.

Which is why I ship the kids to Grandmas once in awhile so I can do a toy cleansing in peace. She lives two hours away, so even if they had a weird super power to hear me clearing out broken bits of their latest happy meal toy, there is no way the could convince my mom to drive like a bat out of hell and get back in time before I bagged and dumped them. 

Which is exactly what I just did. I happily sent my kids away and the following day I pulled out a box of trash bags, my cup of coffee, threw Pandora on my laptop, and went to town tossing toys. I tossed broken toys, toys not played with for years, toys that haven't seen the light of day since my boys were mere babes.

Want to know how many toys were taken to their final resting place? Five trash bags worth. Five bags, groaning under the weight of sheer plastic. Also, I got rid of My Little Creepy Pony. And yes, at the dump, I danced the jig of freedom, right there, under the eyes of the trash attendants. When one raised his eyebrow at me, I pointed to that pink freaky rocking horse and said "This toy? Scariest toy ever. It'll give you nightmares. Trust me." Best feeling ever to get rid of that thing once and for all.

Twenty bucks says that the kids wont even freaking notice when they get home.