How many toys is too many?

Here's a picture of my kids' playroom. The strange rectangles on the top are license plates, and they don't look that glow-y in real life, I promise. Anyway, most days, I think we have too many toys. Way too many toys. One of my nightly rituals is going upstairs and putting every darn toy back in its proper bin, with the kids' help if I'm not feeling too fried, and all by my freaking self if I'm afraid I might bite someone's head off if they accidentally put a piece of playmobil in the Little People bin.

The good thing is, we have a lot of people who love us. My parents, Eddie's parents, my godparents and grandparents all adore my children, and like to express that love with toys of all varieties. As you may be able to see in the picture, we have 16 sterilite bins in the playroom, all filled to the brim with trains and dress-up clothes and stuffed animals (oh, the stuffed animals!). I try my best to keep on top of the chaos. Two or three times a year I weed through the toys and give away the ones we don't play with. Our playroom sits at the top of our stairs, and is basically a glorified hallway, with the bedrooms leading off it, so every time I go to and from my room, I have to go confront the toys. Most of the time I feel like a lone foot soldier facing an entire army.

Today, I came home from church and went into my room to finish the horrible book I've been reading. Maren was napping, Eddie getting ready to go into work for a few hours. When I woke up an hour later, I didn't hear the tv, didn't hear any bickering, instead I heard giggling coming from the general direction of the playroom. I listened for a good ten minutes before opening my door, which I thought would break the spell. I found Bryce, Annie and Isaac all playing an involved game in which they took every stuffed animal in the bin, categorized it according to either its natural habitat or type (all "hooved mammals" were together, for example) and opened a pet store for business. They played happily for at least another hour, recruiting me to go shopping in their store, feeding the animals from the bin of pretend food, doctoring to them with our doctor kit, etc...

The sad thing is that stuff like that almost never happens. I wonder if the kids feel as overwhelmed by our toys as I do. But on days like today, when they play without screaming for more than two hours, it almost feels worth it to hold on to all eight stuffed monkeys, three stuffed orcas and at least two stuffed manatees.