This weekend is Big Trash Day in our neighborhood. Every-other year our city pays the local trash company to come around and collect, well, big trash. Refrigerators, furniture, carpet.
But I'm thinking this is a great opportunity to clean Katie's room. She has no kitchen appliances in her room, no rolls of carpet, but she does have TONS of toys she's outgrown.
It makes me stop and sigh, pondering the fact that she's an only child with no siblings to inherit her things.
Her twin cousins are a year younger than she is, so they get her old clothes and toys that aren't infested with dog hair and sand. But many of the things in her room are so worn out I wouldn't even donate them to charity. It's time to throw them out.
This isn't the first time in five years I've cleaned Katie's room, although my husband might argue it's close. I generally go through her things about twice a year, when the seasons change and it's time to switch to summer or winter clothes. But I've only once previously gone through her room and discarded unused toys. That was two or three years ago. Just thinking about all the tiny objects I'm going to have to pick up, assess, and put into a pile makes me want to go take a nap.
It's not big trash but a bunch of little trash, so it's still a big job.
I remember coming home from school when I was in second or third grade and my mom had cleaned my room. Instead of feeling grateful or guilty for not having kept it clean myself, I felt violated. Someone went through my stuff. Moved my stuff around. Gotten rid of stuff? Hey, where's my...
So do I do the same to Katie? Certainly I lived through a forced divorce from many of my childhood toys and I'm a fairly well adjusted person. Will Katie be ok if I pitch her crap and don't tell her, letting her figure it out on her own? Or should I fess up and say, "Hey hon, I'm throwing out these toys because you haven't played with them for two years. If you have a reasonable argument for why we should keep them, let's talk about it, otherwise, the trash haulers will carry them off on Big Trash Day."
How do you get rid of your kid's old, un-donateable toys?
Becky, I clean the girls toys quite a bit. I make Penny help identify what's going. We talked about the space constraints, and how Mom doesn't like walking on toys, etc. We also talked about how we can't get any more new toys unless we find old ones to get rid of. I let her show me what she can part with, then I show her what I think she can part with and we make a few compromises. I always mention how we've outgrown it, or no one has played with it for more than 3 months, or we have another toy that's very similar and we really only need one. She really likes the idea that they are going to someone's house that needs it or doesn't have it and will enjoy it more than her.
ReplyDeleteStuffed animals are a different matter, though. I have had to sneak several out of the house. She has never asked - I don't think she even remembers them. I find the manky ones that no one cares about and the slip off and so far no one's the wiser. We've already put a ban on any new stuffed animals (unless Santa brings them, of course), and we'll have to start letting her pick which to get rid of (except she keeps picking the doll my mom made me).
I suggest trying to get Katie involved in picking out stuff with you first and working together. You can always sneak in later if that doesn't work. ; )
Thanks, Hilary! Actually now that you mention it I do recall asking Katie about some old toys a couple years ago when I first started weeding through them, and we decided together which ones to donate to her cousins or the thrift store.
ReplyDeleteI just finished cleaning her room. It only took 1 1/2 hours, much less time than I expected. I only threw away stuff that was obviously broken or seriously gross. Like this-has-obviously-had-several-trips-to-the-sandbox-and-possibly-the-slip-n-slide gross. I also found some really nice sticks, no doubt once used as swords for battling imaginary "bad guys".
But yeah, it feels good to see her floor once more! We'll see how she reacts when she gets home from school.