The Year of Entropy, Part II -- Where Will We Put Another One?

Yesterday, DH, Bubba and I struggled to sort through Bubba's endless supply of toys in order to find a way to have them all fit inside the toybox (except for those toys that are bigger than the toybox all by themselves, of course).  We had to get pretty creative. 

If it was part of a "costume," then it could go into a costume box in the closet.  Okay, that helped a little.

If it was a "game" and not a toy, then it could go into the closet on the game pile.  Okay, that helped a lot, especially if we were liberal with our definition of "game".

Then we had the delicate discussion of what toys we were going to put aside to give to  "my new baby brother and sister," as Bubba likes to put it.  We've tried to explain to Bubba that there is only one new baby coming, not two, but I'm not sure he is getting the picture.  Either way, he agreed to part with some of his things for the sake of no longer being an only child.  Boy, is he going to be surprised, I think.

Then, sometimes openly, and sometimes clandestinely, we discarded some "toys".  We were successful in dumping a lot of unopened McDonald's prizes, but we were not successful in parting with a rather beat up box that used to contain 12 K cups of Chai Tea.  Apparently, this box is still a very treasured dog house for the ever-so-important Pluto. 

And that was it.  With precious little (read "no") room to spare, the toybox is closed.  At least, it is closed until I find the next stash of toys that we missed from some other room.  Unfortunately, all of this work has lead me to some troubling questions.

Where are we going to put that new baby's stuff?  In a family where three people sometimes struggle to fit into a four bedroom house because we have an unnatural attachment to crap, where will we fit a whole new person and all of his or her accouterments?

Of course, the fact that we are almost at the bottom of a hand-me-down chain right now (and will be at the bottom when the baby arrives) is both a blessing and a curse.  The good news is we have a whole bunch of neat things we might not otherwise be able to get, like a work bench, a child's table, an art easel, a big giant castle to crawl in, and a teeter toter.  On top of that we have a tent, a slide, a ball pit, and miscellaneous other toys that Santa has brought over the years.  The bad news is we have all that stuff in one house, for one kid, in a family that can barely stand to part with calendars from 5 years ago.

You see, it was more than the Christmas chaos that made me think Entropy was moving in for an extended stay.

I think we're doomed.