My four year old son is a hoarder. He comes from a long line of hoarders. I'm not sure how many gererations of hoarders there are, but I can say for sure that he is at least a 4th generation hoarder (with the exception of my parents, as it apparently skipped a generation.) I used to call myself a collector. That was before I had a child and had disposable income. Once I had to start focusing on downsizing my collections (mainly of books, yarn, crafts and Lenox tchotchkes) because a baby was stealing my space, I limited what I bought. I still have a huge yarn collection and try very hard now to shop first from my stash before buying new for a project. But lets face it, I hoard good yarn!
My biggest battle with organizing our home at the moment lies in three areas: mail, toys, and a collection of stuff in the basement. I spent a couple of hours tonight trying to clean up the toys and clean and refreshen the top of our microwave cabinet, which had become a collect-all of things I took away from a certain four year old. I decided today that I wanted to get a better basket for our fresh fruits and veggies, so on my way home tonight I stopped at Crate and Barrell and purchased a great two tiered basket. I love how it looks and it works out great for our space. I still want to replace the cabinet, since it was here when we moved in here and really doesn't work for us anymore. I want to see if I can find a pie safe in Lancaster that would work there.
The toys are just out of control, and it doesn't help that my little hoarder likes to keep bags full of toy parts, trash, junk mail, and pencils. I have managed to get rid of all but one bag of stuff. I resorted most of the toys and returned them to their rightful spots/boxes. There were dominoes all over! The tool bench that I spent MONTHS debating and deliberating whether I should purchase it because that is all the kid wanted for Christmas is now a desk. He informed me that he'd rather have a desk than a tool bench. All of the tools and building kit parts sat in their box under it, untouched. I finally removed them and put them away until he grows bored with the desk idea and wants to build again. It doesn't help that we do not have a play room. His play room is our family room. I have bookshelves filled with toy storage bins and boxes, along with a large train table for his trains and roads that has storage underneath. That doesn't seem to be big enough though, as we also have big play toys! A grill, a kitchen, the tool bench/desk, a piano, a huge bin of blocks...and he plays with all of it! I realize that someday all he'll want is an Ipad and computer, so for now we'll just have to make due and deal with it! I love his imagination and listening to him play. He does love to play!
Here he is in his latest set up...it was either the front desk at a Hershey Comfort Inn or a check out lane at Giant.
The basement problem is enogh fodder for another post! Let's just say, it's time to get rid of wedding and shower gifts from 1998 that we have still not used!
