Bedroom Decor Redefined

Perfume, a jewelry box, a mirror, and candles – these items could be found on a typical woman’s dresser. But most typical women do not have four kids who beat the hell out of each other with toys of cranial destruction.

On any given day, you will find a few knight swords, a light saber, a lacrosse stick, tinker toys, a wood wand, and a noise popper on my dresser, known as the impound for preschooler contraband. It never fails that within five to seven minutes of me returning confiscated toys to my children that I retrieved them once more after I hear “Mom, _____ hit me in the face with the ______.” With every incident, the offending child lands in time-out and their weapon of choice returns to the confines of my dresser.

As I seize more and more toys, they are becoming more creative in their weapon choices – shoes, belts, matchbox cars, puzzle pieces and Lincoln logs all have been used to inflict pain. Yesterday, a soft Webkin’ was smashed in the face of the six-year-old boy by the eight-year-old girl, so these warriors are becoming more adept at adapting and utilizing the weapons that surround them. If I wasn’t so mortified by their brutality, I would be in awe of their innovativeness.

So toy by toy, their bedrooms become sparser and my dresser becomes more cluttered. Sure, someday I aspire to have a finely decorated dresser like kind you see in Elle Décor, but for now I am resigned to the decorating style of a Toys R Us catalog gone bad.