Toy Clutter

I made a weird observation today.  I have mentally been blaming the kids for the house being in disarray.  In fact, I went as far as bagging up the toys that were strewn about the house in order to “throw them away.”  It has been 3 days and the toys are still bagged up and the kids don’t seem to mind one bit.  Several of the toys were brand new and exciting when received for Christmas. 

I rationalized this in two ways.  One the kids have too many toys and it is time to donate toys in good working condition or discard toys in unsafe condition.  The other thought is kids will entertain themselves with as many or as few items as there are available.  In the absence of electronic devices they will steer towards crafts and books.  In the absence of crafts and books they will steer towards hide and seek or other pretend games.

Having these rationalizations, I am not sure what the next step is.  I am leaning towards steering them in the “right” direction by organizing and putting toys in storage.  They would be brought out as the theme of the week or month.  For example we could pull out all of the puzzles at the same time or all of the board games at one time.  They have not played with play dough in weeks and haven’t asked for it.  There are enough storage bins in the house to make this happen quite easily.