This weekend we had the urge to purge. Mark and I conducted an impromptu toy purge of our home while the natives napped. By the time it was over, my husband stuffed three garbage bags of toys into our storage closet.

It’s staggering how many toys we’ve accumulated in the three years we’ve had children. Before having kids of our own, Mark and I used to visit our friends who had children and wonder how and why a child could ever have so many possessions. We’d say, “Our kids will NEVER have that many toys.” Oh, how delusional were we!

Flash forward three kids later and we have enough toys to open a small toy store. I’m almost certain that toys breed overnight when no when is watching them, and they take over your house much like other household pests. It’s too bad you can’t call Orkin for that.

My husband and I do not buy toys for our kids very often. We mainly reserve toys for birthdays, Christmas or a special occasion. What we failed to take into account is all the gifts that come at Christmastime and birthdays from everyone else. By the time grandparents, great-grandparents, aunts, uncles and friends give our kids Christmas and birthday presents, there’s really no need for us to buy anything.

We also didn’t factor in what I refer to as junk toys, the knickknacks children acquire from fast food chains. I can’t tell you how much I enjoy confiscating those plastic restaurant toys when my kids are sleeping and tossing them right into the trash. It’s so liberating. The kids never miss those toys. The entertainment value wears off after about an hour or two of play.

I do give Chick-fil-A props for at least giving parents the option of returning toys in exchange for a free ice cream. I wish other restaurants would adopt the same policy. That would be a win-win situation for both children and parents.

Honestly, I’m sure Mila, Eli and Siler do not even play with half of the toys they own. How could they? Some toys are buried so deep in their toy bins that I think the U.S. Military has a better chance of finding Osama bin Laden in a remote cave this week than my children have of finding these toys.

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