Used Toys Anyone?

For years I have collected the trains, cars and any toy that was in decent shape to proudly pass to my nephews or sell in a garage sale. The huge pile of toys taking up most of the space in our garage was something I was proud of. No matter that my husband keep kindly asking when we can park cars in our garage again or that rust has overtaken some of the bikes that were stored outside. I was going to have a glorious garage sale. And also set aside toys to donate to local charities.

My dreams were trashed with the announcements of lead found in toys and the corresponding recalls . And when I say trashed, that is where the glorious toys that I was saving ended up. Trashed. The time required to attempt finding recall information on the toys would be overwhelming. And it seems that garage sales have gone out of style anyway.

The New York Times published an article called "What's a Parent to Do?" discussing the anxiety parents feel

shopping for 'lead free" toys. The article had some other examples from fellow bloggers: Liz from Cool Mom Picks was having trouble finding safe toys at target. Danielle (from our sister site Chicago Moms Blog) had to take her 2 year old's favorite toy away and. I commented about parents' hesitation about participating in the secondary market of used toys. Ebay items even had comments explaining if they toys being sold were recalled or not.

Like Danielle, I took out our wooden toys to see if my boys would use them. I am putting the other toys in the garage until I can find out which have been recalled. Or just put them into the tash.