A Handy Tool Box

I just thought I'd share a mommy chaos control idea. When my little boy gets together with other children, they completely demolish his room. The big toys aren't a problem, but all the little stuff is a nightmare. With cars, play food, blocks, potato heads, and Lego's scattered through the house, the kids are too overwhelmed by the mess to clean up. So I came up with a solution.

I headed to Walmart and purchased cheap tool boxes ($6.00) at Walmart to put the various small toys in. We had a bunch of little luggage locks already. I separated the toys and locked the boxes. The kids had to have me unlock the boxes in order to access the toys so I could control how much they got out.

Some parents might find putting a lock on toys distasteful, but it worked well for us and it might work well for others. Many will say that training your children to get one thing out a time is the goal and they will not learn this if you use this method, but that is not true. We no longer need the locks. Jamie knows he can't get out more than one at a time (maybe two, depending on the toys). We still keep the locks on them because Jamie insists upon it. He calls them his treasure boxes. He has access to the keys now, though. If he has friends over I might take back control of the keys, though.