Have you ever cleaned neon yellow dog poop off your foot at midnight?

Yesterday I broke my one personal parenting rule.  To not buy my children toys which contain more then several pieces.  My theory is that however old the child is, that is how many parts the toy should have.  For example, Noah is 4 so therefore can have a toy with 4 pieces.  Whereas Bella is 1 so she can only have things that are 1 piece in it's entirety.  I keep this practice because I, for one, hate picking up millions of tiny parts to a toy/game and then trying to make sure that they all miraculously stay together so that the toy is not deemed useless and missing half of it's parts, and two, because the dog can eat plastic like nobodies business and I value midnight walks to the bathroom without grave injuries from stepping on matchbox paraphernalia and multicolored dog shit.

Now I do occasionally feel like my kids are lacking in the toy department when I go to other people's houses and there is a virtual Toys R' Us in the living room/basement/bedroom.  My kids go ape shit playing with their friends toys and when it is time to leave, usually some sort of meltdown ensues.  But here is the thing...when "I" buy the toy that they just HAD to have and bring it home, they play with it for five seconds and then they are right back to getting into MY stuff and I am left picking up the GD million pieces of the abandoned plaything.  The doll with the bottle and the diapers and the clothes and the baby food is scattered in 4 different rooms of the house while Bell runs around with my cell phone.  The Hess truck with the 6 matchbox cars that go inside is in at least 2 rooms and Noah is playing Angry Birds on Dov's cell phone.  So what is the point?

As parents, we all have momentary lapses in judgement, and yesterday I had a biggie.  I bought Bella a kitchen play set.  It came in about 70 pieces that I painstakingly screwed and snapped together.  It took me the better part of 2 hours to put this damn thing together.  Tiny forks and knives that I had to separate out of plastic sheets, plates and knobs and pans and stickers.  If you have ever bought the game WAR and assembled it, this is a close second.  Yes I knew it was a mistake as soon as I opened the box.  The most the children have done with it is take every single solitary piece of this set and spread it around, under and on top of the couch, rug, TV stand and up the stairs.  I literally have not stopped putting this kitchen back together since 2 o' clock yesterday afternoon.  No good deed goes unpunished right?  If the thing gets me a five minute bathroom trip alone I guess it will be worth it.  Here is how it looks as of 10 am this morning, post 2 complete cleanups at 6 am and 9 am consecutively.

Yeehawww!