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. ...