In Defense of Hiding the Toys You Hate

I have lost count of the number of times my dream of a long, hot shower has been dashed by one of my children needing to use the bathroom. So imagine my delight when I was able to steal away 30 minutes in the middle of a weekday—visions of solitude in a haze of steam and soap bubbles dancing in my head. Only, it wasn’t until I was stepping onto the bathmat afterward that I realized to my great horror, I had been humming Baby Shark the entire time. Only a mom’s frazzled brain could take a moment of solace and stuff it full of the most maddening song known to humankind.

My daughter could run through a room and not only decimate a conversation, but also tense every set of shoulders in her wake. So it shouldn’t have come as a surprise when, weeks later, I unlocked a kitchen cabinet to find the shoes neatly nestled in a bread-loaf pan.

So it shouldn’t have come as a surprise when, weeks later, I unlocked a kitchen cabinet to find the shoes neatly nestled in a bread-loaf pan. And then a plastic Elsa doll went rogue and got its switch stuck in the on position, flipped to Spanish.

For a little while, we did most things against the backdrop of a perky voice we could only imagine was asking us, “Do you want to see some snow magic?” It wasn’t long before I found Elsa face down across the toy trumpet, her batteries removed, safely locked away from our children.

In the stress that is pandemic parenting, devoting precious conversation time to the tap shoes or the trumpet has never felt important enough.

Instead, it’s become a sort of secret game: I watch my husband wince at a harmonica or talking puzzle, and in no time it appears next to our baking dishes.