Fixing Those Obnoxious Noisy Toys

Did your kids get toys that make a bunch of noise?  I know I know, silly question!  Some noisy toys are less noisy than others, some are downright obnoxious.  Little Man got a bunch of construction trucks for Christmas which he LOVES, and some of those are really loud.  So I fixed them.  And I'm going to show you the trick I learned years ago!

 Here's one of the more obnoxious sounding toys that we got for Christmas.  Don't get me wrong, he loves it and I'm glad he got it!  But I'd be less glad if I couldn't do what I'm showing you next.  And you should get some note paper because it's complicated.

Look around for the speaker holes, and cover them with a layer of clear tape.  That's it!  Usually one layer is enough to turn down the volume without taking the fun of the sounds it makes away.  If you looked around our house at noise-making toys, you'll find a lot of them with tape on them.  Some are quiet enough on the low setting to not need any tape, but many do.

So if you're kids toys are driving you crazy because of the sound, tape them up!

Phonics Toys That Ticked Me Off

I love educational toys. Love love love educational toys.  Because I have young children, and I do daycare, and I teach preschool to these children, I get to research them, buy them, and use them whenever I want.  For the most part I'm pretty good at picking out educational supplies and toys, but sometimes they wind up backfiring on me.

These magnet letters for the Leap Frog Fridge Phonics dealibobbers are one of those toys.

In general I love these dealibobbers! (fun word huh?) The single Fridge Phonics one teaches the letters and the letter sounds, the Word Whammer teaches the letters, letter sounds, and has different settings for spelling real words and creating words on their own.

                                
 
Both Thingymajiggies have a music button that when you press it, it sings the alphabet... this is a VERY popular button let me tell you.  And, thank the creators for including a volume switch!

These have both been well-loved toys.  Sadly though, the Word Whammer was purchased way back when Sweet Pea was 2 or 3 years old and we've lost most of the letters for it, and it doesn't work anymore, so that's a bummer.  Also sad, I have tried replacing the batteries for the single unit but it doesn't seem to be working anymore either.. it is only a couple years old. 

The only problem I have with this toy, and it's an annoying one, is that we have been using the letters as fridge magnets for holding various art and papers to the fridge... except they don't ever stay on the fridge. 

The are big enough to not be a choking hazard if they fall onto the floor and into the hands of a little kid, but they are also big enough to be really easily bumped into when walking around the fridge.  Not to mention Little Man's favorite thing to do with the magnets (since the doohickies aren't working) is to swish all the magnets within reach onto the floor, which means they fall to the floor, get kicked around, stepped on, and are always in the way when sweeping!

groan.

this has been an all too common sight for far too long.

I finally got sick of it and put up the thingymajigs and threw all unused magnet letters into a bag and hung that bag up in a cupboard.  I did not do this with any kind of cheer or good feelings... I threw the letters in the bag and stuffed that bag away as quickly as possible... I had kicked my last magnet across the floor!

Or so I thought.

Because we're still using some of the letters as fridge magnets.. because they are holding stuff up... they are apparently still determined to be on my floor.  When I knocked one down today I wanted to throw the damn thing out the window!

I guess a run to the store is in order where I can find a better type of magnet for my fridge... big enough to not be choked on or swallowed, strong enough to hold up paper, and flat enough to not be a shoulder hazard.

All this lamenting aside, they are great toys, but only under these circumstances:

Your fridge is located in a spot where you will not walk past it and brush it with your arm.

or

You keep the magnets in a container only to be brought out when used and put away when not.

for example

You wouldn't even need to use them on the fridge, play with them at the table, also baking

sheets make excellent surfaces for playing with magnetic letters or numbers.



These circumstances are what keep me from throwing my Fridge Phonics thingy away all together.  If I can get it working again (perhaps different batteries.. the ones I tried were unused but pretty old) I'll bag it up in a zippered bag and it will come out to be used at the table. 

I really don't know why I'm hanging onto the non-functioning-letter-missing word whammer.

That I should really just go toss out now.

All in all, it's a pretty great toy... just don't count on those fridge phonics magnets necessarily staying on the fridge.

I Tackled Little Man's Closet

   Back a few weeks ago I had made it my mission to get the toys organized (among other things in my life) as they have taken over my house.  Honestly, they took over my house 7 years ago when my oldest daughter was born and we experienced our first Christmas with children.  When you have a daycare in your home, as part of your living space, organizing toys/getting rid of toys becomes quite different than typical parents.  If I didn't have a daycare I would currently be getting rid of all my boppy pillows, bouncy seats, small-sized pack and plays, and would soon be getting rid of bunches more!  I would, since my last baby... as far as we know of the future... is a boy, I would have gotten rid of barbies, dolls, and other girly-type things (though I am adiment that little boys have every right to play with barbies and dolls if they feel like it) when my girls tired of them.  Instead I pass them on to the daycare, making it really difficult to get rid of "extra" toys.  So there's my excuse, or... um... reason, for the excess toys.  Now, on to what I did over the weekend before I got sick and slept through the football game.

Remember this?  Little Man's closet, where "extra" toys are currently being stored?

Yikes that's scary!  As you can see the closet is unable to contain the madness.

Now look...

What you can't see here is that I've gone ahead and put together a very small pile of  "extras" that I have realized I don't need, and they are going to whoever wants them or goodwill.  There's a bouncy seat that doesn't vibrate or play music like it's supposed to (not sure if I can actually give that to goodwill), a Snugli infant carrier that none of my babies and I got the hang of, so it barely got used, and I don't need to keep it, and a couple more odds and ends.  After I got the closet better organized (it's not perfect, but hey.... I'M not perfect either!) I was able to really clean LM's room for the first time in weeks.

See what little boys can do when they have a nice clean floor to play on?

They play with the legos they got for Christmas!  And by "play" I mean smack them around the room. :o)

I can tell he appreciates it.

My "Non-Resolution" 2010 To-Do List

   I don't do New Years resolutions, haven't in a few years (see the "toys" post about that one) because I think a year to accomplish something is just too long for my motivation to hold out.  So perhaps smaller short term goals are what I really need. Like monthly goals, break that down to weekly goals.  A "To Do" list of sorts. 

   So what should I start my 2010 "to do" list with?  Organize toys (probably going to need to break that down into more specific steps), organize paper work, organize bills and finances, bathe my son more than once a week, bathe myself more than once a week (haha, just checking to see if anyone's paying attention!), get in better shape, achieve my gold belt in Karate by the end of the month, spend more time outdoors as a family (the dog needs it too), watch less reality TV, watch more Grey's Anatomy :o).  I think I'll start with that.

   Please dont judge me too harshly, I'm going out on a limb here and baring my soul/mess for the sake of self improvement.  Here are some pictures of the areas where toys need better organization.

This picture and the next one are taken in the living room/ daycare playroom. This is after my daughters picked up the living room.

Not too bad right? Just needs a little straightening up. The bins at one point were the clear bins from Target and the lids are stacked ever so helpfully under the bins.

Here we go... Little Man's closet. He's 9 months old and he doesn't have much stuff, so his closet has become (for now anyway) a storage closet for toys that either don't fit in my daughters' room, or are daycare toys awaiting the next rotation. needs work.

Brace yourself!!

This is our daughters' room.  They share this room, and it's not very big.  We tell them to go clean up their room and everything gets pushed into all sorts of evil little corners and nooks and cranies.  Obviously though this is not one of those days, they haven't lifted much of a finger in here for weeks.  I clean it myself from time to time and it will look spotless for 4-5 days max, and that's with a reward sticker chart prompting them to keep it clean!

 

turn a little to the left and you see... this

turn a little more to the left and you see their closet.  For the love of Pete please help me!

   For obvious reasons the daycare kids aren't allowed in this room, it can't handle any more kids in it, and it's just not an acceptable place to play.  Since I've decided that it works way better to break up these things into workable chunks lets start with January. Achieve gold belt, organize toys, work on getting in better shape. I think those three things will be a good start, and who knows, maybe I'll chip away at the others while I'm at it.

   If you have kids (or even if you don't) and you can relate to any of this, please make me feel better and tell me about your messes.  I have others than these, but I'm working on toys this month so that's all I'm going to focus on for now.  If you are an amazing organizer and know exactly what to do here, please tell me that too!!  

Toys Toys Toys

Like I said before, children inhabit my house.  My kids have more than enough to play with at any given moment, as they not only have their own toys but the daycare toys at their disposal.  And then Christmas came along and they got even more stuff!  Because they have SO much stuff at their disposal to play with all day long, they tend to play with one toy/group of toys and then move on without ever completely picking up the first toy.  For instance they may play with the legos for a while and then want to play with the kitchen toys.  They get most of the legos put away but the remaining 10 legos scatter around the room.  Then when they want to quit the kitchen toys and move on to Little People, you can put money on the fact that there will be random plates of toy food around the house where they had started feeding a babydoll or teddy bear.  My point is that no matter how many clean up times we have during the day there will always be random toys pushed to the edges of the rooms, under the couches, on the table, and in the wrong bins.  I feel like I'm cleaning up after them all the time, even when they pitch in and help, there is so much to clean up all the time!  Thankfully because there are babies in the house I'm much more picky about the littlest toys getting picked up, so the kids do a pretty good job about those. 
   I need to organize this madness, I need to get more bins (with lids) or something and put pictures of the toys back on the bins I have (many have been picked off of the bins over the last couple years), and figure out something better to do with the kids art supplies.  The art supplies are stored in no less than 5 different places.... efficient? NO!  Does this make it easy for them to find what they want and put it away in the correct place? No. 
   I also need to get these kids some jobs around the house.  We try to do chore charts and things like that from time to time but it never sticks, my fault more than it is the kids fault.  Maybe someone can be in charge of sweeping for the day (*cringe*), someone else in charge of clearing the lunch table after lunch (they all scrape their own plates though and put them in the sink).  But then what?  Can I have someone be in charge of warming up my coffee?  changing the poopy diapers?  probably not, but I could use some ideas.  I made "getting organized" a New Years resolution a few years ago, giving myself a whole year to do it.... didn't happen, and I haven't made a New Years resolution since, but I need to change some things around here none the less.  Some serious organizing needs doing in my life, my brain will feel so much more relaxed when it happens.

Ideas are greatly appreciated!!