Morning Productivity & Our Toy Makeover

Last night we had a family dinner and didn't end up getting back here until about eleven thirty. Logan fell asleep on the way home, but was up late. I could not get comfortable and eventually fell asleep around twelve thirty or one but woke up so many times after that tossing and turning. I am not sure what the problem was, but when Dan got up at six thirty I decided my efforts were hopeless, and got up with him. Logan didn't end up waking up until after ten. It is amazing what four hours of child free time can do for my to do list.

In my few hours of free time I managed to squeeze in...

• Folding a load of laundry
• A load of dishes
• Packing Dan's lunch
• Pasteurizing Logan's milk
• A cup of coffee 
• Cleaning a bathroom

The last thing I managed to get done is something I have been hoping to get to for a while now. It seems like I am always shoving more things in Logan's toy box. The top is almost always propped open because of a toy overflow. Since we don't have a toy room, the contents of the toy box are usually spread throughout the entire house by about eleven in the morning. I have noticed that he doesn't stay interested in the toys for very long. He mostly just takes everything out and drops it wherever. I decided it was time to work on our toy problem.

I have a hard time getting rid of toys (even if they were free or really cheap and have no sentimental meaning). I decided to split the toys in half. I am going to store half of them in the basement and half in the toy box. I thought about dividing them up so that they are in four boxes and switching them out every week. I ended up deciding to switch them once every two weeks instead, and go from there. 

I am hoping this plan will help in many ways...

1. I think each toy will keep him interested for longer. I notice that when he has too many toys, he is easily distracted from the one that he is playing with.
2. He will be excited to see a new set of toys every few weeks (even though they are really old toys).
3. It will help me keep the toy box clean. Organizing and sorting the toys out will help keep things like snacks and trash from sitting in the bottom of the toy box.
4. After a few switches I am hoping it will help me see what I can actually get rid of. I won't be getting rid of gifts, but cheap toys that are never played with can go to a new home. The ones that he has grown out of, but that I still want to hold onto, I can store in a different bin in the basement.
5. It will be so nice not to have to clean up an entire toy box worth of toys at the end of the day. I have been trying to teach Logan about cleaning up the toys before nap time and think it will help to have fewer toys to have to put back. 

It makes me so happy to see this instead of all of the toys.

** I have done a two month follow up post and would love for you to check that out too! You can find out exactly how much this switch has changed things for us in my part two post here.