Keep out of reach of children

This is not our house, but it is a hint of things to come.


I swear my kids are going to be hoarders. They have no concept of what constitutes rubbish. And I don’t think they’re the odd one’s out – I suspect in years to come, shows like Hoarders will be ever more prevalent on our tellies. Personally, I intend blaming Pixar. 

The Toy Story franchise has confirmed for legions of children the world over their toys are real and have emotions. If you toss a toy out they have their little toy hearts broken.

Thing is, once the idea of endowing toys with thoughts and feelings gets a foot in the door…well…where does it end? Old ballerina sheets, cause they have faces? Same goes for Ben 10 lunch boxes, right? Scraps of paper with kid’s drawing? Why not? Suddenly everything is precious.

We have a string in the dining room which displays all our kids’ masterpieces. Miss5 inparticular thinks any time she passes a pencil over a scrap of paper it should be wall mounted and admired. I attempted to clear the string off today. It didn’t go well.

“What are you doing?” Miss5 asked me. My hand was poised over the bin.

“Tidying up,” I told her. “Tossing some rubbish out.”

She looked at the balled up wad of papers in my hand. ‘Here it comes’, I thought to myself, and she didn’t let me down.

“Is that my….NOOOOOO!”

And suddenly I had a five year old screaming and clawing her way up my torso, her hand outstretched and snatching at my extended hand like King Kong swiping at biplanes on the Empire State Building.

Which of course attracted the attention of the real monster in this house.

Tracey walked into the kitchen. “What are you doing?” she asked me.

“Tidying up,” I told her. She, too, looked at the balled up wad of papers in my hand. I tried to explain. “I’m tossing some rub-“

“Is that the…..NOOOOOO!” Of everyone in the house, she’s the person who is most anal about keeping every little drawing.

Maybe I’m being too hard on Pixar. When my kids are snatching their fifteen minutes of fame on Hoarders: Buried Alive I think I’ll blame Tracey.


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3 Comments

  • Donna wrote – we used to use all the kids “artwork” for wrapping paper. We’ve kept a couple from the early years, but most of it got recycled. They loved being able to pick the wrapping for presents and it was sooo much cheaper than buying stuff that just got tossed anyway. The big rolls of butchers paper was especially good for art.

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