Where Did All These Toys Come From, and Can I Just Throw Them Away?

Before I had a child, I had definite ideas about how my children would be raised. A few educational toys, lots of books, very little TV, lots of good exercise, good nutrition, etc. We've done pretty well with a few of those ideas - Wendy has lots of books, even though she only ever wants to read her favorite two. Her nutritional status is pretty good, as long as no one expects her to eat the lima beans. Good exercise - she does that all on her own!

The toys. Oh. The toys.

I've stuck to my plans and have spent maybe $150 in toys over Wendy's lifetime, including birthdays & Christmases. Most of these toys are ones that require a lot of imagination, and some are great activity toys (like the Bounce & Spin Zebra I wrote about last week).

However.

Wendy is the first grandchild on James' side of the family. She's the first granddaughter on my side of the family. I'm not going to put all the blame on her grandparents, but at least one set has bought her way too many toys. (Not the set that lives close by.) Wendy also has several aunts & uncles who like to see her face light up when she gets a new toy - especially if it flashes or moves or sings or otherwise requires batteries.

Somehow, between 2 birthdays, 3 Christmases, and many "I just had to get this for her" moments, Wendy has enough toys for a whole day-care center. (I think there may be some toy hanky-panky going on during the night, because some mornings I'd promise there are more toys than there were at bedtime.) Something has got to be done. I don't think it's good for children to be swimming in toys. I know for sure it's not good for my tiny house and my pitiful attempts at organization.

So what should I do?

Do we just get rid of about 85% of her toys?

What about the toys she's outgrown, that we want to save for David?

What should we do to maintain a reasonable amount of toys, when people keep giving us tons of stuff?

Techie Questions

For Mother's Day this year, James shocked me by getting an iPod classic. I've wanted one for a couple of years, since we don't have a good stereo. I had such fun importing all our CDs and making playlists with different themes.

My iPod classic is the 80GB version - enormous storage capacity. Which leads me to a few questions:

1. How do I load photos on my iPod? There's got to be a way to do it, because there's a "photos" option on the menu.
2. Can I download clips from YouTube? How? I'd love to get some of Wendy's favorite clips on there for entertainment at doctor's offices and such.
3. What's the easiest way to play an iPod in the car? Our van has a CD player, but no iPod dock or anything like that.

I hope some of you can answer my questions. I've been Googling my little heart out, and haven't had much luck.

Inertia

When it comes right down to it, I'm simply a victim of physics. When Newton described his first law of motion, he was talking about me. "An object at rest tends to stay at rest..." That single principle describes one of my biggest struggles - overcoming inertia.

Today is definitely one of those days. I set my alarm for 6 a.m., fully intending to get up before Wendy so that I could get some things done before resuming my "Mama" duties. I know, I know, that my day goes a lot better if I can get a head start on my chores before Wendy wakes up...and yet...I turned the alarm off and snuggled back into my Blankie, and slept until Wendy called for me.

And now, it's almost 10 a.m., and I have accomplished exactly nothing. True, I fed Wendy - how hard is it to unwrap a couple of Nutri-grain bars? I also...no, wait, that's it. That's all I've done. My to-do list overflows with things I could and should get done today. And yet, I am like this polar bear:


I know I'm not alone in my struggle to get with it in the mornings. Do any of you have a good strategy? Any ideas for boosting my self-discipline, for getting me up and going and accomplishing things??

Making Friends

I have recently had a realization.

I don't know how to make friends.

I'm serious.

I'm good at making acquaintances - you know, folks you talk to at church, people you e-mail every so often, people you'd stop to talk to if you ran across them in Kroger. But real friends? The kind you can call any time and laugh with or cry with or go shoe-shopping with? Those are much harder to come by.

The best friends I've ever had (we're talking girl friends here) were my college roommates. We lived together for two years, before James and I got married, so we were bound to either love each other or hate each other. Those girls are still my friends; even though we're scattered across the globe, we've managed to get together twice in the last couple of years, and it's been awesome.

But I would really like to make some good friends here, since it seems this is where we're settling down. How do I go about making friends? I don't think I've ever really known how. We moved so much when I was growing up that I never really had friends. Boyfriends, sure, but no trusted girl friends.

I'm shy and quiet by nature. I feel like an awkward dunce in many social settings. When I'm thrown into a group of people, especially one in which friendships have already been long-established, I'm on the fringes, a fish out of water, a perpetual acquaintance.

Any ideas? How does a shy SAHM make real friends?