Saturday, October 6, 2007

A Playroom By Any Other Name....

would actually be the room where children played. But dare to call it a playroom and you are doomed. Our playroom is a lovely little place painted bright shades of red and blue to stimulate the imaginations of our little ones. It has little plastic drawer sets for the storage of toys. A train table, toy box and bookshelves. Little rugs with roads and trains tracks on them and a nice big window to let the sun in. Perfect, right?

Only one problem. The kids don't actually play in it. It is more like a room for toy storage. Or toy chaos. Trains, traintracks, blocks, hundreds of books, dolls, action figures, etc. Usually NOT stacked neatly on shelves or in their respective homes, but scattered on the floor and migrating into other parts of the house. They are in other rooms as illegal aliens and they will be deported. We don't issue passports to toys for visits to areas where adults spend most of their time. Before we had children we thought it was Nazi-like to insist the kids' things stay in the kids' area. And we aren't completely hardline about it. But we do try to keep 90% of the toys in the kids "wing" of the house. Their rooms and the playroom. Why?

Because, while a lego is an amazing little piece of plastic full of creative possibility during the day, at night, it is a torture device designed to inflict maximum pain to the unsuspecting tender sole of one's bare foot. And no matter how meticulous we have been in the picking up of toys, there's always one. One small rectangle destined to be stepped on at the first call for juice or water or bathroom visit. So back you go toys. Back to your room. And away from my foot!

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Amnesty international should be looking into lego on the floor. NOTHING hurts more. It is torture

Stomper Girl said...

Somehow our lego ended up in the so-called grown-up's room. Well, all the bits of it which aren't strewed from one end of our house to the other, that is.

Mary said...

I'm with Tracey - nothing hurts more!

I love the smell of bath fresh children.

But I do not want any more!

M said...

It is SO tempting fate to call a playroom a "playroom". Better to call it the "secret parent hideout". We have a "kids TV room" but the kids far prefer to watch tv in the "adult tv room". I totally give up.

On the Lego front - I'm all for it being glued together and never taken apart. Padawan Learner has loads of Star Wars Lego (figures, doesn't it) and the number of times his friends have strewn all 1000 pieces of the Millenium Falcon all over his floor.... GRRRRR.

crafty said...

Yes, lego hurts.

We have a 'lego room', which is really a playroom I suppose.

We have lego in every single room of the house though.

Aunty Evil said...

Maybe you have uncovered the secret for getting information out of people accused of murder, robbery or terrorism!

Bugger the hot coals, dripping water and bright lights. Put them in a dark room, spread lego randomly on the floor, and tell them the door to freedom is only 100 metres away. But they have to get there first.

Precious Pink Pumps said...

have you ever noticed how kids toys just don't break? I often muse that they should starting making real cars out of tonka truck plastic - seems to withstand amazing traumas.

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