The Closet and its Hidden Treasures

About 2 weeks ago, I put a lock on the boys' closet door.

No one was in trouble (although I got the idea from a fellow mom...ahem, Auntie Christi...who did throw all her kid's toys in the locked closet as punishment).  Basically, I woke up one day and realized I couldn't take it anymore.

The toys.  Everywhere I turned.  It was like Toys R Us without the boxes or shelving.  And they were taking over not only the house but my mind too.

Before Christmas and after Christmas, I had dragged in the big black trashbags and thrown away what felt like a ton of broken toys or toys that were useless.  But it didn't matter because toys?  They breed on their own.  And no sooner do you throw out a bag of them, the others immediately go into hyper-reproduction to fill the void.

The other problem with throwing out their toys is, well, my boys actually do play with it all.  In stages, of course.  McDonald's toys?  Entertain them for weeks.  How do you get rid of stuff they actually like?

I didn't.  I pushed 65% of it into the closet and locked the door.  And in the past two weeks, only two items in the closet were missed immediately and needed fetching - a pirate ship and a veterinary set. 

They noticed though.

"Mom?  My closet's stuck."
"Mawma!  Open de cwoset!"
"Mom?  Why can't I get into my closet?  Is it locked or something?"
"Mawma!  Open de cwoset!"
"Um, Andy's mom?  Can you open up their closet?"
"Mom!  When do we get our closet back?"

And then there was the little neighbor kid, when I told him that I wasn't going to open it up, took that to mean I couldn't open it up and he ran across the street, woke his dad up and dragged his dad over to help me get that closet open.

I don't know when I'll open that closet up.  Sometime this summer, maybe?