Its like a nightmare. They just kept coming and coming. Every time I turn around, there are more of them. They multiply seemingly overnight, and nothing I do stops them. I tried getting rid of some, but as soon as I did, more showed up to replace them. My entire life seems to revolve around how to contain them, manage them . . . destroy them.

I refer, of course, to the toys. The tiny little Polly Pocket pieces. The Barbie shoes. The Matchbox cars. The puzzle pieces, and crayons, and Mr. Potato Head accessories. The Legos on the floor that hurt more than childbirth when you step on them at 3:00 in the morning as you stumble to the bathroom (because since birthing the owners of the toys, you can’t make it through the night without having to pee, but that’s another post).

The sheer volume of toys is astonishing. Christmas presents, hand-me-downs, “just because” presents, Happy Meal toys, goody bag booty – I’m being attacked from all directions. My older two turned 5 on Sunday – 37 new toys made their way into our house. 37! Please don’t misunderstand – I am grateful to family and my kids’ friends for their generosity, but if I have to pick one more Army Man out of the dustpan, I’m going to lose my precariously fragile grip on my sanity.

I have fantasies. I am not ashamed of that fact. I’m an adult and fantasies are healthy. I am ashamed of the fact that the most recurring fantasy I entertain involves a large garbage bag filled with all the toys and a trip to the dump.  To get rid of every single piece of hard, shiny, colorful plastic in my house – that’s what I dream about. Not Brad Pitt, or those vampire kids, or George Clooney (well, ok, I do still dream about George. He was Batman, wasn’t he? I’ll bet he could help me organize the superheros and all their crime-fighting gear. Without wearing a shirt.)

This is the part of the post where I’m supposed to write something about how seeing my kids play nicely together with all those toys warms my heart and makes my enormous contributions to the Hasbro and Mattel coffers all worthwhile. I can’t do that. Maybe I’ll still raw from the new toys my kids got for their birthdays. Maybe someday, I’ll look back and remember how nice it was to watch Phineas & Ferb storm the Batcave while Barbie herds Hot Wheels cars in the Little People Farm. But now, I’ll just continue to fantasize and hope that I can make it to the bathroom in the middle of the night without impaling my foot on a stray Lego brick.