New Page 1

THE GREAT TOYCLEANUP

It is time once again for the great toy cleanup.

Every few months, my wife and I decide that we have fought the battle long enough, and it is time to dive headfirst into the ever-expanding pile of toys that take over our house. It's like if Fisher Price made kudzu.

The last time we took on the toys, we had great results. We devoted an entire evening to the project, a notion which may cause some of you to roll your eyes at the amount of time we spent. You most likely do not have children, as many parents read that and said, "A single night? It took us that long to find all of the parts to Malibu Barbie's Auto Garage!?!?!?"

The last time we did the cleanup, my wife ran the point, coordinating our effort. (I use this wording because it would be unfair to her to say, "Sat me in a room and told me I could not leave until we were finished.") We separated toys and toy parts into four piles: (1) Allie's toys that were going to her room (2) Parker's toys that were going to his room (3) toys that were staying in the playroom and (4) toy parts that, we were fairly sure, could be reassembled into some sort of toy.

Now before I continue, I must state that it is not like our house is knee-deep in toys. But toys migrated downstairs, into other rooms, into cabinets, behind refrigerators, etc. And so a lot of the effort was merely corralling the toys and taking them to their rightful home. (Although I know that the cleaning is a necessity, I have to confess that a dining room table sometimes seems a little empty without a dollhouse, dump truck, two Strawberry Shortcakes, a stuffed snake and a broken Slinky on it.)

Returning toys to the kids' rooms was a fairly easy task. You just open the door and set them inside. Then, of course, I was informed that we were expected to actually put toys up in the rooms, which seemed like a whole lot more effort to me.

Similarly, returning toys to their correct homes was also pretty easy once we got everything in a single place. It was a simple four step process:

1. Open closet

2. Insert toy piano

3. Repeat four times

4. Question why you have that many toy pianos

But the final hurdle is the biggest headache and the part I dread most: the reassembly project. The disassembled toy pile is always the biggest pile. And I don't think that's by accident. Children have an amazing knack for disassembling toys and strewing the pieces about the house. I am not sure why we, as parents, continue to spend hours and hours assembling toys. I think my children really enjoy the pieces far better.

ME: Merry Christmas! Here are 308 parts of plastic that, if I were to assemble them, would become a baby carriage.

ALLIE: PARTS!!!! You're the best, Dad!!!!

I am sure I could try and convince my wife that we should leave the toys in pieces for our children's happiness. I think I would have a better chance of convincing her that, for our next anniversary, I should go to Vegas with the guys.

The most amazing thing about the reassembly, of course, is when you get down to a dozen or so parts that you have no clue what they belong to. There are parts to toys that, so far as we can tell, have never been in our house. I think my kids may be involved in some black market toy parts ring.

One approach I take at every toy cleanup jaunt is to suggest that we give away, oh, 90-95 percent of the toys. This suggestion is always nixed. "But honey," I say, "they never play with that toy!"

"Uh, it's been wedged under the couch for four months." Foiled by logic again.

In the end, my wife will prove to be wiser than I, and the house will be better off for the cleanup. And the kids will enjoy finding all of these toys that they had most likely forgotten about. It's like Christmas, in a way.

They see what were once long-gone toys, and a smile crosses their little faces as they embrace what was once, quite possibly, their favorite toy. And then they disassemble it.