Recently, I saw a TikTok video by a mom about her trinket daughter. She panned over her 5-year-old’s collections of tiny treasures all across her bedroom.
It could have been my daughter’s room. Or let’s be honest, my entire house right now. My daughter has been a collector (or hoarder, depending on how you look at it) of tiny treasures since she was a toddler.
The collecting of tiny objects began when she was a toddler
My daughter was only 1 when we noticed her propensity for collecting small items from around the house, sometimes toys, sometimes not, and then arranging them.
There was the play kitchen canister, topped by a swim diaper and crowned with a stuffed pineapple, which appeared on the coffee table. Or the lotion bottle she relocated to her bedroom windowsill, surrounded by Elmo, Ernie, and Cookie Monster, like it was some sort of shrine. My husband and I began taking pictures when we found them to document the hilarity.
As she grew older, she also began to go beyond just collecting things left around the house to acquire her own favorite things. Some of her favorites include sensory toys, erasers, jewelry, mini characters, and stuffed animals. Every trip is a chance to beg for a trinket from the gift shop to add to her stash. She spends her allowance almost as quickly as she receives it on new additions.
With all the trinkets also comes the chaos
While it is an endearing trait that continues to provide amusement for my husband and me and the family photo thread, it can sometimes get to be a bit much. In her room, her dresser, desk, and nightstand are all covered in little trinkets, as well as hairclips, chapsticks, rocks, shells, and artwork. When she has a cold, there is no room for a box of tissues or a humidifier on her nightstand. One accidental knock and half a display goes flying across the room.
She also loves putting all her treasures in various other places in the house, including inside her collection of pouches, purses, bags, and boxes. Displays of items have shown up in our bedroom, on our windowsills, dressers, and bookcases. And sometimes she can’t remember where she has put (or hidden) items. Inevitably, a beloved item will go missing, and then we have to search through the entire house and inside each bag, box, and bundle to locate it. It has been the source of many tears when we can’t locate them or when something gets knocked over and broken.
It can get hard to clean and overwhelming when they crowd out the use of surfaces like her desk or art table. Because, like a lot of kids, she never wants to get rid of anything. Every couple of months, we go through things and cull the herd. Then I have to make a case for why we definitely do not need three identical Arby’s kids meal toys.
As the chief chaos wrangler in our household, I’ll admit there are times when I just want to take a trash bag and sweep it all into it. I don’t, but I definitely want to. Her trinket collections just seem to grow, and what she sees as beautiful displays of her favorite items can start to feel just like a mess to me. I think it may be time to invest in some floating shelves for her bedroom so she can display the special things she wants, and I can retain some of my sanity.
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