On Sunday, I had enough of my 5-year-old asking me where his toys were. He had been going on and on for weeks asking us where certain toys were. Sometimes I’d know and point him in the right direction and sometimes I put up with the whining and let him try to find it on his own – which usually led to him finding something entirely different to play with.

For the first time, HE HELPED me clean out all of his toys. (This is something that needs to be done about every 4 months in our house.) I wanted to use it as a lesson in life and show him – visibly – that he has a lot!

I took every single toy in the house and made a pile in his room (I learned this trick from the book, Simple Parenting). He was overwhelmed by the size of the mound. Before we began to categorize, toss and save, I made it a point to talk to him about the mound of toys and have him realize that he has ENOUGH — no need to keep asking for more.

He did well with the exercise. He truly did help me clean it up — which included tossing a lot of junk, putting toys aside for friends to have, storing some for later and organizing the “now” toys in his closet.

This deep cleaning that I usually do twice a year allows us to re-organize everything and change out some of the stored toys to become “now” toys.

I hope I can just go a few weeks without hearing about a lost toy or needing something new.