Controlling Baby Clutter Craziness

We're trying our darnedest not to raise a spoiled brat. I mean, c'mon, I don't need another me running around, right? ;-) (Side note: I was a brat; not spoiled...regardless of what my siblings might say. Oh, and it has been amended. Mostly.)

That being said, we were humbled and grateful by all that we received for the Hadman's first birthday. I let the pile of happiness sit in a corner of the living room until it drove us crazy (okay, Dave was driven crazy on day one) enough to finally dig in.

We let Hadley pick a few of the toys out to play with at first but have come to realize that he'd get overstimulated by the mass of new toys plus his accumulation of previous toys. So, I decided to go through them ALL in order to create our own little "store" to pull from and switch the loved-it-but-it's-boring-now toys out with...only to pull them out again in 6 months.

After pulling my Beatles Rock Band equipment (yes, the drum set, guitar, bass and mic) out of our huge storage ottoman to store in the basement (I will not be getting rid of it!! It's just not something we have the time or energy to play with now - besides, I'd feel guilty skipping chores while the baby naps to rock out to "Lady Madonna"), I was left with this...

Emptiness!!! Massive emptiness!!! And after a recent Target trip, we came home with this baby. (Not Wee Wee, though he is, by all accounts, a baby. I know he was thinking, "Oh, you're taking a picture, huh? Don't you need a model? Let me get in there, you need a model. Don't look me in the eye." That's hysterical if you know his "voice.")

We have one in the baby's room that holds his rarely used toys and stuffed animals, which I also dragged downstairs to empty. After finding 95% of his toys, I dumped them all out and got a look at the situation (as did Winston and Beardslee; find them!)...gulp...

And the little monkey perused the damage, as well... Look at that smirk. We're in trouble with this one, I tell ya.

At least he's a willing helper...

And a surprisingly short time later, we were left with this...

And this... (We love that push toy but it doesn't fit anywhere; once he's walking more and not using it, into storage it goes...or back to Aunt Mary's house, its rightful owner. ;-))

There's the other basket upstairs, and I switched out the previous faux leather storage container to be used for his mass of board books (love them! Nearly indestructible!!) and the smaller one that had been holding those books to be used for the smaller toys in the ottoman. Confusing, but all it means is organization! Yay!!

Along with moving an extra ottoman, the living room feels so large...and makes me think I need a way bigger rug, ha! But, seriously, after all this organizing, Dave and I have realized that we need to put a limit on the toy situation for Christmas. Like, one per set of family, IF they want to get a toy. (Same can be said for outfits but those are at least more of a "need" than a "want.") We're even asking Santa for a certain small number of toys, like one educational, one retro, etc. Besides, our real weakness is books...which means we'll need to find a new book storage strategy, too. I swear it's never ending.

We're just so damn lucky.