Thursday, January 10, 2008

Quit giving my kids stuff!

No, not you. Or you. Or you. It's all the other people. Today I spent the morning trying to clean out the playroom that had become such a disaster that you couldn't walk through it. I had filled one garbage bag to throw out and one garbage bag to give away and I was winding down. It wasn't finished, but I knew that Ches would be waking up soon. So...I said to myself, I wonder if I could find 100 more things to throw away. They didn't have to be big things, just anything. And so I spent a little more time and, yes, I managed to find 100 more thing to throw away. Some were small, like a bead sitting on the floor. Some were big, like a dump truck that my kids haven't played with for forever, but much of it was little things that my kids bring home from scouts, birthday parties, pre-school, church, Burger King kids meals, etc.

You see, everyone seems to think they need to give my kids stuff. Little erasers and pencils, ultra cheap toys in little party bags, and handouts and popiscle stick people and stuff. My kids like these things and are sure that they should get to keep them, but they play with them for a few minutes and then they end up in some corner of the playroom with lots of other junk.

Today, there are over one hundred things sitting in my trash can that I will never have to pick up again...and it's making me very happy. Now, how do I keep from ending up with 1oo more things?

5 comments:

JandS Morgan said...

It's impossible. It is like the inevitable relief society handout which ends up in my trash can immediately. I give a pass to the kid's crafts if it made them happy while completing it. I'm glad I can recycle all the paper my kids go through daily. We are definitely a disposable society. I do love getting rid of stuff, it is very cathartic (sp?).

morganspice said...

Should I take it you don't need one of our extra gameboys/Linkoln logs?

If you are still using the gamebory color ones the advance are nice trades up, but I have listed a lot of my stuff on half.com. I posted a longer post about what kinds of things you might need, like Cecelia, what size is she in? But seems like you're good, and we could probably use any money we could squeeze out of it cause birthdays are going to get starting.

RBent said...

Carol, I had missed your list when my harddrive went down and you had already taken it down by the time I saw the post. So, I've never seen it. But you are right, for the most part, we don't need any more stuff, although my boys would surely be sad beyond measure if they knew I had not gotten then Gameboy Advanceds.

morganspice said...

That's ok Rachel, just let me know, if you are ever wanting anything, because we are in a very similar postion to you and desperately need to get rid of stuff. So who knows, if you need something, you might get it for free if we are about to pitch that thing. We also have games for various systems that we may be getting rid of and they hardly ever use their regular nintendo anymore so that is ripe for you cannabalizing games and controllers--the money suckers--of those systems. I don't tend to mind a nice vid game system because it is small, compact, and provides hours of entertainment at strategic times.


Also, As I looked at Fran (? her name?)'s picture again, she looks like the Grandpa Morgan side of the family to me, which would be consistent with her looking like Levi, who looked like Grandpa Morgan (deceased) to me especially when he was little.

morganspice said...

And I think there is something in her almond-shaped eyes that looks Morgan to me. Basically she looks like some of your dad's sisters?

I always like to figure out who shares what features in a family and it is usually easy with most of my kids, except for Chase who we can't figure out at all who he looks like!