Toy Story

It is not a good idea to attempt to manage the toy closet (ie, chuck stuff out) in between watching installments of Toy Story. Skip to 2:15



Not when your kid talks about how the poor toys are going to be burned....



I happily explained that ours would not be going in the burnable trash, that's not allowed in rubbish-mental Japan, but would be nicely buried where some achaeologist of the future will dig them up and and they will be treated like treasure.

Thank goodness my kids don't know the word 'landfill' (skip to 40s)



The other thing you must not under any circumstance do, is use personal pronouns to refer to them. A few weeks ago, I brought Jamma Lammy downstairs to toss, having finally had enough of her. She was a gift ages ago, a girl-shaped alarm clock that sings an annoying song. I don't think we've ever used it as an alarm clock - it's too annoying, and we could never seem to coordinate the feat of having working batteries in both the doll and clock parts of the device. But then each kid in turn 'discovered' her, and had to keep her, occasionally pressing the button that makes her sing and then say "Alright!" over and over again in that way kids do with toys that are supposedly 'interactive' (meaning they just make noise when you press the buttons, so the kid does it over and over again like some kind of drug) So it kept hanging around until the next clear-out.

Then I made the fatal mistake of referring to it as 'her', that I was going to throw 'her' out because 'she' is not very useful, we never use 'her'. Cue sad eyes around the breakfast table. Poor Jamma Lammy.

So, part of the solution is to give some things away.

A little girl we know in Beppu will probably be thrilled to inherit our entire zuzu pet collection, plus accessories. I hope her parents don't kill me.

Kristin, you should know that next time Sasha wants the Littlest Pet shop plus pets and accessories, she is going to be allowed to take it home.

I know a little girl called Pinglet's mother does NOT want more toys, but I hope an elegant evening purse with a few items of costume jewellery that were too nice to throw out will be fine. I guess I'll ask first if she want the old Puri-kyua outfits.

There are two energetic little boys in Oita who will have endless fun with the Fisher-Price toys.

One more little girl in Usa marked herself as a victim of our 'charity' by expressing a love of ponies the other weekend. I hope she likes the pony princess dress we throw in as well. I'm sure her brother will LOVE mowing the astroturf on the deck with our noisy toy lawn mower.

And GW, what do you say to some Bratz dolls, or Barbies?

Thank goodness I know so many people with little kids!

Bonus Jamma Lammy vid: