Yesterday was an evening of cleaning the house, basically picking up after the children. We have a 4-year-old, and 1-year-old. Noah my sweet angel 1-year-old son, is the biggest mess maker ever! He constantly carries items from room to room and drops them off as he finds something more interesting to play with, then changes rooms again.
My hubby Eric was doing a thorough cleaning with the vacuum cleaner, lifting couches and moving furniture to see what treasures lied beneath. Of course we found Noah’s blueberry traveler waffle that ended up under the ottoman from the morning. We thought he ate this much to quickly, but one never knows. Shockingly this treasure was not found by the dog.
Cleaning led to the ottoman next which NOT to our surprise was full of food particles, cereal, cracker crumbs, ect…. A bowl here, toys there, toys with missing pieces. And how many fast food restaurant toys does one child need to play with (embarrassed that I guess we have eaten at these places often enough to collect so many toys).
Eric and I have a system while cleaning like a cleaning sign language. We like to throw away all the little broken toys and the Happy meal toys when the kids aren’t looking, and of course this has to be done in secret stealth mode. Don’t dare let the kids see you take the toy and throw it away. Eric and I give each other the secret glare with a nod showing the toy in our hand then either handing it off or making a dash, bounding and maneuvering around the toy obstacles all the way to the garbage. We secretly have to hide the stolen goods within the trash, as this would be devastating to your 4-year-old to see his broken and or cheap toys on top of the garbage pile. Lucky, I don’t think anything that we have ever trashed was remembered by our little ones, probably because they have WAY to many toys.
So throwing away broken and or cheap toys is one thing, but I was sitting with my Nicholas last night, and hubby brings to me the old beat up fringed decorative pillow from our family room. Hubby plops this pathetic ripped, drooled on pillow in front of me. The poor pillow was so distressed it was losing its fringe. Hubby says, “can we finally get rid of this pillow, it is ripped from end to end”. Nicholas looks to us with panic in his eyes, waiting for my response. I say “Yes just get rid of it, this pillow is old and beyond repair”. Here’s Nicholas, sobbing “NO! Don’t throw it away, I love that pillow, but why are you going to throw it away?” Me, “Nick honey, this is just a pillow, and it is badly ripped, It’s time to let it go.”
I never thought my son would ball over us throwing away a decorative pillow. God forbid one day his pillow pet bites the dust!
We can only get rid of toys to recycle them when the kids are both at school. Otherwise, it would never happen! I’ve found food underneath the couch cushions more than once…we really should get a dog.