Toys in a drawer
Steven Balmer, an American businessman and investor who was the chief executive officer of Microsoft said “Accessible design is good design”.
I agree and that is why we have drawers full of toys in our family room. While I am cooking dinner or washing/folding laundry my youngest wants to be near me, near the life going on in the house. While I am helping with homework or tying soccer cleats he can also pick up those toys and put them in a drawer so that after dinner or when we get back in from soccer practice the house isn’t a wreck.
My mom has a drawer in her kitchen full of toy food that all seven grandchildren have enjoyed playing with as she cooked or canned or did all her many things she does in her kitchen.
Stuffed animals are treasures and some are slept with nightly and kept in their beloved Toy-Story-like Location on the bed, some were souvenirs or gifts from special events that cannot be replaced, but where do we put them all other than a labeled box in the attic? Over the door shoe rack
…And dress up clothes…they TAKE OVER. we have tried hanging them up, we have tried hooks the kids could reach, we have tried a lot of options..my favorite? THE HAMPER..easy cleanup, easily accessible. (Im hoping that you follow me on Instagram and have see the visuals for this-if not hop over there now)
Do you have a friend you could still dial their house phone from memory? You know like in the 90’s? I do. And just as Ben Rector says in his son “Old Friends”
I can still find Wiley's house
Riding on my bike with eyes closed
I can name every girl that he took out
And from my memory, dial his house phone
Can you take me back when we were just kids
Who weren't scared of getting older?
'Cause no one knows you like they know you
And no one probably ever will
You can grow up, make new ones
But truth is there's nothing like old friends
'Cause you can't make old friends
And I've got some good friends now
But I've never seen their parents' back porch
I wouldn't change how things turned out
But there's no one in this time zone
Who knows what inline skates that I bought
Well my friend’s name wasn’t Wiley and her parents’ back porch is still one of my favorite places on earth. Her mom had a box of Happy Meal toys that stayed in the den long after we were 3-6 (the prime years for playing with them) in fact, you could catch a glimpse of them in the picture of her and her prom date in high school. Kids from church and beyond always found them and today, 33 years later, when MY kids go to my childhood best friends house they find that box and play with Rappin’ Raisins and Garfield on a skateboard and Miss Piggy just like we did. And I love it. I love the ACCESSIBILITY of the toys.
So we have drawers of toys and when your kids come to play with mine they can find them and we can watch them play and we can learn a lot from knowing good, familiar, unbreakable, fun things are accessible. Its a gift. Let’s design things that are accessible to who they need to be accessible to.