The Challenge continues, and this was one that you knew was going to be coming.  Ugh.  How is it that the toys literally seem to multiply?  On. their. own.

This is a frustration for me since we do not have much storage space, and we most definitely don’t have a designated playroom for the toys. 

We are not big on having them out in the living room either… though we do make an exception for the multitudes of baby paraphernalia, like the activity gym, the swing, the bumbo etc…

So that leaves the kiddos’ bedroom only to store the toy stash.  We have one fairly big toy box with a bookshelf attached on top that someone gave us when Haylee was about 3, I think. It was purplicious at the time, but Chris painted in white so the Wadester wouldn’t mind. {As if.}

Here’s our before…

And the after…

We also have some itso cubes to house more things.  They do not recommend stacking higher than three, I think, but we make it work.  That’s not to say that it hasn’t “mysteriously” been pushed down, but for the most part four high is okay.

Since we are so limited, we don’t have the capacity to let the toys get too crazy.  I feel like I go through them fairly often to weed through what we can get rid of or stow in the attic for a *possible* future date when we may have more room.

The Itso before…

And the Itso After!

We had those two matching baskets that happened to fit great inside the cubes so I decided to give Haylee and Wade each a cube and a basket.  I even labeled the baskets to help with toy picking up.  Maybe it will work???

Lots of the “How to Organize your Kids’ Toys” articles are saying the big Toy Box is a big mistake.  That instead you should separate out like items and containerize.  I LOVE that idea.  All the balls together.  All the stuffed animals together.  All the cars together.  All the dishes and food together, etc.  Love it. 

The only problem with that is a certain little man who has been known to get a sneaky twinkle in his eye and merrily go wreak havoc on things that look neat and organized ‘just so.’  I’m not kidding.  If he sees a row of something or a box of balls I think there is something in his brain that is screaming, “I MUST SEEK AND DESTROY WHAT IS ORDERLY!”

So for me containerizing meant much more work since the box of balls and bin of dishes would just keep getting dumped just for the sake of it.  Just because it was there. And organized.

I think he is doing better now that he’s a bit older, but for the moment I am still using the forbidden toybox along with a few containerized things and hope I can ease Wade into the organized.  The really sad part is that the better Wade gets at it, the older and more mobile and more into things Baby Davis will be.  :)

Honestly, I think that sometimes we can take the containerizing too far and make ourselves crazy trying to keep ourselves happy with how our kids play and keep their things. At this point in my life, I am learning that I need to just let some things go that are not really all that important.  If all the balls and cars get dumped to the bottomless abyss of the toybox, it will be okay.

At least the torWado is not pinching his brother…

…for the moment, that is.