When Toys Attack

It started out innocently enough. All eight boxes of our Christmas paraphernalia had been pulled down from the attic and stacked up in our main room – we were ready to deck some halls.  But as I started pulling each stocking, star, Santa hat and trinket out, I looked around and saw clutter. So much clutter, clutter everywhere and clutter that we would only be adding more clutter to.

Particularly toy clutter. Toy clutter that had not been properly played with in months – maybe years.

That just would not do.

So I pulled out some plastic bags and a couple empty boxes, again innocently enough. It was time to collect all the unplayed with stuff and haul it away. It was taking up precious real estate in our cozy home in dire need of Christmas decor.

I never expected all of that toy clutter would actually retaliate.

I never expected that once I pulled a few things out and started sorting, it would pour out and surround me.

Soon there were little people lined up in formation on the floor, matchbox cars of every make surrounding me and plastic dinosaurs precariously placed on their sides – ready to mangle any bare foot. And electronic devices of all sorts, going off, squealing hideous obscenities, as their batteries died within.

The kids stayed back. Maybe the reason they hadn’t been playing with these toys was now more apparent. Maybe they were afraid. These things weren’t toys. They were parent seeking, clutter making, plastic, broken, noisy, insidious attack militia with my sanity as their target.

It seemed the more I pulled out to sort, the more cluttered the house got, the less I knew what to do with it all and then… I got stuck. Every toy box empty. All of it out. And sorted. But I had no idea what to do next. Trash? Give away? Keep? And where?

And where had it all come from in the first place??

I swear I never buy my kids toys. Their birthdays and Christmas – yes. But I’m not a “stuff” person. And they don’t beg for it either. So I thought we had it under control.

I was wrong.

Happy meal toys, headless Star Wars action figures, dried up markers, broken train track, puzzle pieces, fake food with real tooth marks. And then bits of colorful plastic that I didn’t recognize at all, broken off from something or another. Those drove me most insane. Do I keep this? Is this something they need for something they have but don’t play with because this piece is missing? Or is it a smashed up something or other that we tossed long ago and this one piece remains. What is it???

So, in retaliation, I started bagging. I wouldn’t look those stuffed animals in the eye, I couldn’t remember how much my eldest son adored that ragged old teether, I disregarded all sentiment and just got bagging. It was my only defense, I tell you. What else was a mother to do?

And I think the books were the hardest. Books we read a thousand times over, that my children found so much joy with, that taught them their first words or signs or colors. Words are my downfall. I’m a sucker for them. I loved those stories. But I couldn’t let them drag me down. If they weren’t reading them now, if they weren’t NEEDED any longer, they got thrown in a box. I knew what had to be done.

Panting, an entire weekend after the job was begun, I stood triumphant over two enormous trash bags of toys, two boxes of children’s books – all for give-away – and one huge bag of trash. What toys that remained had a home: the little people were caged in plastic boxes, match box cars parked away, and anything that threatened the tender under sole of an adult foot was snapped shut in tupperware.

Success. Victory! The toy boxes were under my control once again. And as I loaded the back of my car up with my prisoners of war, the kids gingerly stepped forward to peer into them again. There’s my favorite phone! You found my Cars car! My Star Wars book!

And so I revel in the room left behind. My Christmas clutter decorations have found spots in and amongst it all. There is peace in the land.

Until Christmas morning. Until everything is unwrapped and the toys begin to regroup, reorganize and rebuild their assault. It will happen again. But until then. I win.