It’s that time of the month.

No, not THAT time… I mean the time where I am overwhelmed by…

TOYS.

They have taken over 1/2 my kitchen table with newly acquired Legos.  (Okay, I admit, I am the one who told them Legos had to be played with at the table…but I didn’t think they’d take up residence there and never leave.)  Strawberry Shortcake and friends have another corner of the table.  Their craft/school table is cluttered with various cars, books, and dress-up jewelry.

The living room looks like every boy’s dream:  monster trucks, Hot Wheels, superheroes…. pretty much everywhere.

And then I entered my daughter’s room…

Wow is all I can say.

Why is it that little girl toys always have so many itty-bitty parts????  And how do you organize all the princess castles, Barbie cars, Littlest Pet Shop play sets?

I’s love to store some of the stuff under her bed, but it seems My Little Pony has already claimed that spot.  I am pretty sure there is a village-worth of ponies in the under the bed drawer.

About once a month the toy-chaos gets to me, and I find myself looking around for anything they haven’t played with recently that might “disappear.”  The problem is, they play with it all.

At one point today I called my sister, knowing as a mom she’d understand.  I was actually hoping that her 21 years of parenting and dealing with toys would give her some wisdom to share with me.

After ranting to her about how I had just spent 20 minutes trying to figure out a better way to organize all the Barbie paraphernalia, and telling her that I just wanted to show my Peanut where all her stuff was now, my sister started laughing….  She knew before I even said it that my little girl didn’t care how it was organized.  There was no, “Oh, thank you, Mommy” moment.  In fact, I almost had to drag the child in to show her the Barbie box and the drawer that now held all the dolls.

My mind is still churning, trying to find a solution (other than just pitching it all out, which was sounding pretty good to me earlier today)….

Thankfully this usually only hits me once a month, and tomorrow I won’t be driven nearly as crazy by the mess.

But, since I know it will hit me again eventually, how do you contain the toys?  I’d love to hear your suggestions!  In fact, I’m thinking of sharing all the wonderful ideas you leave in the comments section in a future post.