Tonight, as the kids and I were undertaking yet another decluttering project (read: putting away all the toys and throwing out all the completed school work no longer needed), I had an epiphany.
As you know, I have three girls. Each of them is extremely clear on what items belong to which child. They can almost always tell you where any given item came from (birthday, Christmas, from this aunt or that grandmother, etc.). They NEVER forget when someone has borrowed an item belonging to them, and when and in what condition it does or does not get returned.
Further – and bear with me here, I will tie this altogether, I promise – when it comes to snacks, or even toothpaste (they are very picky about this for some reason) for crying out loud, they always know where my stash is. They each have an uncanny knack for ferreting out, say… the Mint Milanos I bought just for me. Because let’s be honest, if I didn’t do that once in awhile for myself, get something little JUST FOR ME, I may actually implode. Or become an alcoholic or a vicodin fiend, or maybe I’d try on the so-in-vogue sex addiction in order to distract myself. [No, of course I wouldn’t Mom, but I’m MAKING A POINT.]
What I’m getting around to saying? Just this: my girls know what belongs to them, where it belongs, and they’re observant and smart enough to know where all kinds of stuff that they’re NOT supposed to know about – they know where that is and who that belongs to, too.
So can anyone tell me why, when it comes time for cleaning up, putting away the Little People and the train set and the pretend food and dishes and the Barbies and the Polly Pockets (and all their shoes, which are approximately 3 mm long), etc., why they suddenly have no clue where anything belongs? And how they cannot see that Barbie purse in front of their foot? Or the seven lip glosses in every reach of the living room? Or the pretend grapes and miniature plastic ladle right under their nose? Seriously! How can this BE?
How is it that we have millions of electronic toys and gadgets, and no one has thought how to utilize technology to help make the task of cleaning up less onerous? LeapFrog – a company whose products I really like, mind you – can make pretty much any gadget under the sun teach your toddler their alphabet and letters, and Baby Einstein has opened up a whole new way of communicating with your baby, right?
And.
“Organizers” and bins (formerly known as toy boxes) fly off the shelves of Target and Wal-mart like maple trees shedding their leaves in September. Really, looking back a generation or two, would you ever have thought that plastic could be made into kajillions of sizes and shapes targeted toward children, from Legos to LittleTykes outdoor play equipment?
So tell me: how is it that the geniuses at Mattel or Fisher Price or Playskool NOT conspired to partner up with The Container Store or Pottery Barn Kids and create an organization/toy storage system that utilizes the basic pick-and-pack barcode technology utilized by every manufacturer in the world?
And this could get even more fun. For starters, this system would come with some sort of bin/shelving apparatus, peel-off UPC labels, and one of those scanner-gun-thingies. Slap a label, each of which would have a microchip in it, on each toy, and “assign” it to a specific bin. Toy manufacturers would eventually start putting bar codes on the actual toy instead of just the packaging (touting that their product would seamlessly integrate into your already established clean-up routines). These companies would embrace a whole new revenue stream: sell “subscriptions” to portions of their UPC database, making uploading info to your master bin computer system easier. New companies would materialize, selling the same kind of data in different packages, but including various segments of toy brands/companies.
And if we really wanted to shoot this thing into the 21st century, smart phones would have apps that would allow a parent to activate the annoying sound that each toy would make when it wasn’t properly put away BUT activated (hence the microchip) for clean-up time.
For some reason, I take some enormous satisfaction of the mere thought that, with the click of a button or two, children everywhere would be scrambling to address their messes!
Anybody know a good patent attorney? Because I think I might need one. Maybe doing a little R&D on a product with such wide-reaching benefits would help me keep my mind off the joys of scrubbing cat puke off the carpet and the laundry penitentiary I can never seem to escape.
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