A Little Magic Trick

Here's a little trick you can try in your own home. First, take a toy. The lamer the better. Then take the toy, and throw it in the garbage. Make sure not to bury it down with the wrappers from the candy that you ate for breakfast (maybe I'm the only one that does that)--keep it up on top where it's sure to be seen.

Here's the magic: it's a guaranteed thing in our house that if my my kids find one of their toys thrown away in the garbage, it instantly becomes their FAVORITE toy--even though it hasn't been played with for months. Or if I throw away a drawing, it's always the one they spent a REALLY LONG TIME doing. How could I possibly throw it away?

Last night, Ryan threw away some of this stuff (I don't even know what to call it):

It never stops sticking. To anything. Any everything. It's not that messy when kept on the table, but Katie was playing with it all over the house. It had been buried in the back of her dresser, happily forgotten about, until Saturday when we gutted Mason and Katie's room.

Ryan must have been tired of finding little pieces of it everywhere, becasue he threw it away last night after the kids went to bed (good strategy). But he forgot to bury it (bad strategy), and Katie spent a good 10 minutes wailing over the tragedy of finding one of her FAVORITE toys in the garbage this morning.

So, being the nice parents we are, we let her take it out. Now if only the toy we had put in the garbage hadn't been one that STICKS to everything, it might have been okay. As it is, the lump of sticky dot stuff smells like peppers and has what appears to be sloppy joes mixed into it. If I didn't hate it before, I hate it now.

And when I throw it out, it will be in the outside garbage.