Our house will be a little quieter now...
We did a toy purge today. As I'm sure all you parents know, it's an overwhelming task. Part of us feels bad taking any of their toys away, but if we don't go through them every now and then they just become clutter. So while the boys were napping Calvin and I started the dreaded task of sorting the toys. How should we decided which ones to get rid of? Well Calvin had a great idea, he said, "let's get rid of the most annoying ones first." So we made a pile of the most annoying ones, and guess what? They ALL had batteries.
I've been thinking a lot about toys today. Emily's email earlier today (I forwarded it to some of you, but if not here is the interesting link, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=10000192&sc=emaf) got me thinking more about the kind of toys we have in the house. The link is to an NPR interview with the author of Buy Buy Baby. The whole topic of kids and consumerism is something I want to learn more about.
I have a lot of thoughts swirling around right now and I want to keep this related to being green... Voluntary Simplicity is a concept that I have done a lot of reading on in the past and I feel like I am just now, finally really beginning to start to align my life in that direction.
Yes, getting rid of some annoying toys is a small thing. But having less loud battery toys will start to change the "tone" of the boys play time, and hopefully will start to bring some of that simplicity into our house that I crave. And I think that living more simply, and enjoying the simple things in life, is a big part of living green.
3 comments:
Oh, and PLEASE don't be offended if you have given us any battery toys! There are some great ones the boys love, I just want to be more selective about the ones that are out all the time.
Good for you Jennifer. Cameron and I did that about a month ago after I watched Oprahs clutter show. It felt SOOOOO good. The guest of the show said we hold on to clutter for two reasons.....
future use: we think we might use it sometime in the future and
memory clutter: it holds a special memory for us even though we don't use it...
After hearing that I realized that 40 % of our stuff AT LEAST fell into one of those two categories
That was such a freeing experience. To be able to say to myself, I am not diminishing my relationship with my grandma or best friend who gave me this, by getting rid of this object. Relationships live in the heart, not in STUFF. You would think at 33, I would just know that.
Anyway, knowing how much marketers manipulate kids and parents into thinking "I have to have this to be a good parent" or "my kids need this toy to be smart" makes you feel like you can take your power back in a way by getting rid of a lot of that stuff.
A good rule of thumb I have found when purging stuff is to ask myself, "Have we worn this, used this, played with this in the last 6-12 months"
Many time for me the answer is no.
This is a great feeling, just like spring cleaning. I did a huge purge when I ended the daycare, because Jonny just did not need that many toys to play with anymore (and i was pregnant and "nesting". I found that he liked the open space just as much as the toys we donated. More room made the toys he kept more fun to play with.
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