Too many toys - help?

[flea]

Someone in our household has too many toys. (No, it isn't the cat.) I try to rotate things out by putting them in big tupperwares in the closet. She finds them and pounces on the long-lost half of a zipper from The Scrap Exchange like it was her oldest friend. I have also tried putting big things (noisy Little People toys, I'm looking at you) in the basement. She also finds them there.

We basically have very little storage space, and none that Casper can't get into. I would like to simply get rid of some of these things: the cheap plastic bits that don't go with a set, happy meal-esque stuff, and even worse, some of the horde of un-played-with stuffed animals.

Problem 1: I hate to throw shit away. This is useless stuff that's not even worth giving to Goodwill, but I hate the idea of it sitting in a landfill forever. I wish we could have avoided accumulating these things (mostly gifts) and feel stuck with them now.

Problem 2: Casper notices everything. Even if I surrepetitiously discarded things while she wasn't looking, she might well start saying, "Where is my broken turtle ring that daddy stepped on?" And then I'd have to lie ("I don't know, honey, maybe it will turn up!") or, possibly worse, tell the truth ("It was broken so I threw that sucker away.")

Have you had to deal with this, and if so, what was your remedy?

Comments

[burrell.livejournal.com]

We have an absurd number of toys as well. And I've already taken several bags/boxes to donate--I usually cart off a load right before I expect more toys will be coming in (ie at birthdays and Christmas). So far, I've done my best to really select toys that neither child shows any interest in anymore, and Franny has yet to ask for a toy that has been carted away. She did take an interest this Christmas in my bagging up clothing and toys to donate, so I told her what I was doing and that we were giving things away so that other kids could wear them and play with them, and she seemed to like that idea.