Too Much Tiny Stuff

My kids have too much tiny stuff.  We just moved into this house four months ago, and already the playroom is completely overrun with stuffed animals, Littlest Pet Shop critters, and craft supplies.  There are so many bits of paper, yarn, duct tape, and modeling clay on the floor, it looks like Martha Stewart stopped by and had a drunken tantrum.

I throw this stuff out by the handful whenever I walk through.  Apparently I don't walk through often enough. 

My first experience with throwing out their stuff was when my twin girls were two years old.  We had received a PlayMobil set as a gift.  They loved it.  Every teensy, tiny part of it.  Every itty-bitty petal that came off every itty-bitty flower.  The people who make PlayMobil must sit around a conference room, smoking pot and coming up with hilarious ways to torture moms with the most infinitesimally small items.  My friend Liz is still in recovery from a PlayMobil set her kids had five years ago.  "The pirate ... it had an eye patch," she says, twitching.  Then she knocks back another margarita.

Anyway, we had this PlayMobil stuff all over.  One night after the kids went to bed, I collected up a bunch of little plastic bits from under the radiators and sealed them in a plastic baggie.  "I'll give it back to them when they're a little older," I said.  My dad looked at me with pity and said simply, "Just. Throw. It. Out."

This was quite the epiphany.  Oh!  Throw it out!  Of course!  It's my house!  I can just throw this stuff out.  And I gleefully set about tossing the plastic bag of eensy-weensy flower stems.  I jammed the bag underneath some other things that were in the trash, so they wouldn't notice.  (This is also a handy technique for "filing" the many papers the kids bring home from school.  Author Eric Ruhalter refers to this as "garboflauge.")

Once I threw stuff out right in front of them.  Once.  They were four, and I had asked them to pick up their toys. They didn't.  I came in with a big, black garbage bag.  I picked up two or three of their most annoying electronic toys, put them in the garbage bag, and put it in the trash outside.  We could still hear one of them playing its insipid tune as we rolled the can down the driveway on trash day.

Now they're older, so they should be old enough to clean up after themselves.  And they do, usually.  Sometimes they're a little slow to get moving, so all I have to do is go in and start shaking out a garbage bag, and they become super-motivated.  Yesterday I announced that I needed to vacuum, and I was going to either vacuum up or throw out anything in my path.  Believe me, they tidied up.

In all fairness, I have to admit that 99% of the mess comes from the girls.  Little Dude has kind of an OCD thing going on.  So when he was two, instead of scattering PlayMobil parts all about, he was lining up little cars just so.  If they weren't precise, I guess they lost their parking priveleges or something.  We could not leave the house or even leave the room unless everything was exactly right. After little cars, we went through a whole Thomas the train thing.  Sir Topham Hatt was quite the task master.

Now he's onto Legos.  It's basically the only thing he plays with.  Frequently the blocks migrate under the couch; sometimes I find them under the covers of his bed.  But they're never part of the detritus on the playroom floor.  Even if they were, I'd never threaten to throw them out.  There's certain things you just can't even joke about.

When I look at the last two paragraphs I can't believe it took this long for us to figure out that yes, he's on the autism spectrum.  Duh, Mommy.