Simple Saturday - Holiday Edition: The Great Toy Give away

One thing I try to teach, model, and live at this time of year is giving. It is a season of giving, not of getting. So while we do make lists for Santa, we try to focus more on what we are giving to others - talking about who we are gifting as we are making gifts and baking cookies, and how much those recipients will enjoy our gift.

We also have a yearly tradition that we call "The Great Toy Give-Away". It happens today, the first Saturday of December. We've done it every year since Brother-Bug was one (that first Christmas he was 3 months old, so didn't have much to giveaway).

The idea is simple. We look through our toys and find some nice ones that we no longer use. We pick them out and take them to a local family homeless shelter. While we are doing it, we talk about what it might be like to have Christmas morning without a house, how we are helping other kids have presents, maybe some kids won't have a present unless we share some of our excess.

Every year it is a little hard. Every year I am warmed to my core when Brother-Bug gets into it and truly gives from his heart. My favorite was when he gave up a Tonka dump truck, so shocked was he (at three) that some kid might not have even one toy truck!

I've sweetened the deal a little. As we go through the toys, we find a present from Santa. It comes with a note thanking our family for being so generous. The present is usually a Christmas DVD. It doesn't add to our toy load and helps us look forward to this exercise in generosity.

Also, we've linked this with the getting of the tree. Take the toys, pick out a tree, come home and decorate, watch a new Christmas movie. It ends up being a really nice day.

My hope is that we make some space in our toy storage for some of the new toys arriving in a few weeks.  My hope is that the kids learn that giving is an essential part of this season. My hope is that they take the needs of others into consideration when approaching this most festive of seasons.

They might hate it now, or tolerate their Mother's insistence. But maybe the lesson will stick. I hope.

Simple Saturday: The Toy Clean Out

I cleared out the play room last weekend, and have been watching the kids at play in their space since. The pleasure they have had in their space has been amazing to me, yet not surprising. I know that getting rid of excess always feels good for most people, and my kids are no different from me on that attribute.

It was necessary that something drastic change in their room to make space for the refurbished kitchen set my dad made when I was little. I wanted the set in there partly because it's is a beautiful (if ragged after years of play) handmade wooden kitchen that their Grandad created. I have wonderful memories of feasts and fantasies passing through that kitchen while my sister and I played. Additionally I wanted it available so that the Little Bugs could have access to some of that deep, creative play that happen with such a toy.

So I seized the opportunity. The kitchen set was almost ready - after many years of storage it needed some touch ups. The kids went over to my mom's house to help her finish and I tackled their toys.

It was not as big a job as I had anticipated. It was reassuring to know that we have done a good job of keeping a low-ish number of toys coming in the house. But still.

I used the Simplicity Parenting guidelines for clearing space - as I could remember them in the moment of cleaning. I altered them somewhat to fit best with my family's needs and desires.

I got rid of...

Part of the thrift store donation.

Duplicates - when we had two VW bug toys, two memory games, eight stuffed bears, and so on.

Broken toys - trucks missing tires, dolls missing heads, etcetera.

Random Gimcracks - fake teeth from the doctor, extra bouncy balls from a quarter machine, little animal shaped erasers from a past Easter party... You know what little stuff I'm talking about.

Stuff No One Plays With - a set of army men that had never left the box, some of those eight stuffed bears, a set of jacks, and more.

Of course, this is only a partial list. 

I kept new Birthday Presents and all the 'Cars' toys. I kept one noise-toy per kid - a special digger from Brother-Bug's God Mommies and a set of musical flowers that Sister-Bug adores.

The feeling in their room was palpable after I moved the mountain of stuff out to the car. Even though most of the toy storage us not in sight as you walk in the kids room, we could feel the difference as we entered.

All told we took about 5-6 grocery bags and one large trash bag of stuff out. This was probably around a third of the toys. The trash was trashed. The usable items I took immediately to the thrift store, so no little people saw what I was getting rid of.

When the kids got home, I steeled my nerves for sadness. After all, there were a lot less toys than they were used to. But neither has fussed at all, and the available toys are getting a lot more action. Their room is easier to clean up as well.

This has inspired me (and Papa-Bug) to strike at much of our own stuff and to tackle the present giving and receiving issue. The Holidays are just around the corner and I would hate to have all my clearing work undone by well-intentioned relatives.

Finally, I thought long an hard about including Brother-Bug in the process, but I'm glad I didn't. It would have been hard for both of us - he would have wanted to keep all the little bits of detritus that he doesn't realize I threw away. Eventually I am sure he will inventory his vehicles and find many missing, but so it goes.Without his input, I had the freedom to make choices I knew would benefit him. We told him in advance what I was going to be doing, and there were a couple of toys that he told me were really special to him - I kept those to honor his input.

For now, I'm going to enjoy the increased calm in the play room, and the little boy enjoying rediscovered toys and the new kitchen set. And mark down a major win for Simplicity.

I Don't Get It

In this game, Brother-Bug hands his sister a plastic fruit or vegetable with the command:

"Cucumber! (noun appropriate to the piece he is holding) Accept it!"

Sister-Bug takes it, has one pretend bite, places the food in a basket, and then they repeat with the next piece of fruit or veggie.

This has been going on, with erratic interruptions, for about a half hour now.

I don't know what's going on, really. But this is deep play at it's finest... The kind that grown-ups just can't do anymore, because we can't just "accept it".

Mindful Monday: Simplify, Simplify

Right now I am in the middle of reading Simplicity Parenting. Likely I will be posting a review and my personal thoughts on it soon. Until then, let me just say that the messages of Kim John Payne are really resonating with me, and backing up some ideas I already have had, leading where my instincts tell me to go.

When we moved I initiated a toy library/bank. I put about 1/4 or so of the kids toys in a big bin, intending to switch out toys as they looked for the missing toys or wanted something new.

To my surprise everyone, including me, forgot about the bin until recently. So far I am the only one who has remembered. I haven't mentioned it to the kids. Their room is so full of stuff that they haven't even noticed the missing toys.

This Monday I am committing to doing some of the reduction and clean out recommended by Payne in his book.

Who: Family-wide, everyone gets to play! (I'll be the one doing the majrity of the grunt work, however...)

What: Clean out and simplify the books, make a toy-simplification plan.

Why: Brother-Bug has so many books and toys that he is often too overwhelmed to play with them. There is too much choice. There is too much junk - the broken, the excessive, the repetitious. In the books...I pride myself on  an excellent selection of picture books that spans shelves and shelves and shelves. And mostly they live on the floor. There are just too many that we are threatening to permenently submerge under tidal waves of books (I will admit that I can think of worse ways to go...).

How: I have already started by sifting through the picture books in the living room. I have packed into boxes more than 2/3 of the books, leaving out classics and much adored books and ones that I think would be much adored if they ever got time. We went from 3 full shelves to a little less than one shelf. Most books I packed away, to come out again in the future. I will repeat this in the play-room, as well as on the grown-up shelves. There is at least one bookshelf in every room, except the bathroom.

As far as modifying the toy situation, I plan on sharing the ideas from Simplicity Parenting with Papa-Bug and making a plan of when and how we can reduce the toy mountain. I don't want to make a specific plan, because it needs to happen when the kids are not around. But happen it will!

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I'm feeling very inspired about simplifying the kids lives - and my life by extension. If things go the way I plan, I will have a whole series of posts about these endeavors and their results. I feel, deep in my bones, that there is too much stuff, too much drive, to much information, to much going, going, going to be a healthy adult. If I feel that way as an adult, how would it be to be a developing child? My heart shudders. So, simplification... Here we COME!!