In my teenage years, I was lured into being a nanny by a family with five children. My pay was a whopping $6 an hour. They had moved into the neighborhood and, looking back, the mother must have been a tiny bit overwhelmed. One of my duties was to organize the playroom. The empty 10' x 10' room in the basement was filled with 35 moving boxes marked "toys."

What family has 35 boxes of toys?

After my family's move 9 days ago, I now know that family wasn't crazy for having 35 boxes of toys for five kids. We moved at least 25 boxes of toys for our two boys, Ethan and Quinn. How on earth did this happen? We packed a storage POD two years ago with lots of toys that the boys wouldn't miss for a few months...we planned to be in our own home by then. Then, after a year at my parents’ house, we started packing again because we had a contract on a house. So, naturally, I packed up more toys that the kids wouldn't miss for 30 days. When that deal went south, I never unpacked those toys. Another year goes by. We pack up the rest of the toys that those rascals Santa and the Easter Bunny gifted. Now, I am that overwhelmed mother that wants a nanny for $6 an hour to deal with the playroom.

The only way to figure out the toy mess was to dump the contents and start sorting. I purchased shelving from IKEA, clear containers and tons of baskets. I threw the stuffed animals into the spare room. The five billion matchbox cars and Star Wars figure body parts scattered on the floor looked like a huge crime scene.

Sigh...the toys took hours to sort. I finally got to the point of containing each pile and shelving it. I recommend this task without children present otherwise it's the "dig a hole just to fill it up" syndrome.

Finally, after hours of prying each toy from its child and theft-proof plastic casing, I was thrilled with the organization I had achieved. It was picture perfect. The room could be displayed in a Pottery Barn ad. Woody, Jess and Buzz were strategically placed in cubbies to look as though they were riding a Hummer or sailing on a pirate ship. Every toy cube had the perfect amount of bins in it. The dinosaurs were lined up in parade fashion, the rug was straight and the table clean, and the walls unscarred. It was beautiful--gleaming with perfection through the eyes of someone who longs to be a professional organizer.

My sons and husband came in raving about how awesome it was. I turned my back for an hour and all my hard work was destroyed. The screaming started, "Mom, where is my Bay Blade?" "Mom, I dumped all the bins and I still can't find Yoda's blue foot."   

The next day, we decided to organize the garage only to realize that most of the garage would be taken over by more toys. Bigger toys, bikes, wagons, skateboards, scooters, balls, hoops, goals, bats, racquets, helmets and more balls. 

Kids have a lot of stuff. I try to avoid buying toys, but somehow Quinn and Ethan still have more stock than Toys-R-Us. 

Ethan, my oldest, is having a birthday this weekend. I'm wanting to cry because that means there will be more toys arriving and one more cubby to fill and one more box to pack at some point.