Day Sixty--Organized and CLEAN bath toys

One trick that I have learned in keeping belongings manageable is by creating "boundaries" within your space and learning how to stay inside those limits. For example, I have one bookcase in my house that is designated to children's books. When the shelves on the bookcase start to overflow (I have a tendency to acquire quite a number when it's garage sale season,) I know it's time to discard and condense, so that I stay within the boundaries I have created specific to children's books. This is great, because, not only does it give limitations on the amounts of books we bring into the house, but it also allows us to cycle through more books than we would have otherwise.

So, the same goes for almost every other space in my house, including the one designated to bath toys. I have a medium-sized plastic basin under the bathroom sink that holds all bath toys. It's amazing how quickly they accumulate--birthday presents from grandparents, Christmas stocking stuffers, cute little novelties in Easter baskets, McDonald Happy Meal toys that kids are dying to take in the water. My bin is often overflowing and toys are scattered in the cabinet, because they do tend to accumulate, even without you knowing it. However, the size of my basin and the rule I follow in limiting space allows me to keep my bath toys from taking over my life.

So, today, I went through the basin, washing everything thoroughly, including the basin. I used bleach-water to clean the toys. This is especially effective at cleaning mold out of the little squeeze toys that start to look black on the inside. I also discarded a few foam toys that were starting to break and looking pretty old. After I put everything back in the basin, looking very fresh and clean, and my daughter came upstairs and said, "Hmmm....it smells like a swimming pool up here."