’Tis the season for getting rid of plastic baby gear!

We have been yard sale-ing a few times so far this summer, and seeing all of those bulky items lined up along the curbs makes me glad we are (almost) rid of all of ours.

Honestly, you don’t realize how much STUFF babies have today until you get rid of it. The swing, the bouncy chair, the activity mat, the high chair, the exersaucer (a.k.a. Circle of Neglect), the Bumbo, the Jumperoo, the Jolly Jumper, the playpen, the crib, the ride-on cars, the learn-to-walk push thingys — and that’s not even counting the actual toys!

People who don’t have kids will walk into a house of baby crap and think ‘Wow, what a lot of baby crap.’

Parents who have babies are fully aware that they’re wading through mountains of baby crap — literally and figuratively — but they also know a bouncy chair allows them to shower in peace for five minutes is priceless.

As your babies get older, your hatred for every piece of once-valuable baby gear gets more and more intense.

I used to dream about lighting the ugly exersaucer on fire and watching it melt …

… but no, I wasn’t going to give it up until my kids could no longer squeeze into it …

(Once my daughter outgrew it, of course, I was rushing it to the next-door neighbour’s house faster than baby spit-up got stuck in the little plastic dials.)

If you, too, are overwhelmed by the large plastic monstrosities that have taken over your home — wait, this sounds like a PSA? — now is the time to sell them.

It’s yard sale season, it’s flea market season, it’s just get-all-of-this-stuff-out-of-my-house season — and here’s how to do it well …

Keep things intact.

As your child moves onto the next level of a seat/toy/stroller, try to keep all of the infant pieces (safety belts, attachments) so you can sell it or give it away intact.

I have one large bag in my basement where I keep the booster chair straps and cover, infant stroller accessories, Cozy Coupe floor, etc. as we’re done with them, so they’re always in one spot. When it’s time to sell, I’ll be able to put the item back together.

Presentation counts.

Wipe off the item so it’s not dusty (or baby-barfy). Take a nice picture in natural lighting, without a bunch of other stuff cluttering up the background.

Google the exact name of the item, and describe what it does. “Fisher-Price Laugh & Learn: Musical Learning Chair (plays six songs in two languages)” sounds better than “Terrible chair I wish we’d never owned. Plays awful music. Occasionally squeaks in French.”

Price things reasonably.

I roll my eyes when I see people selling well-used kiddie plastic for too much money. My feeling is that if you’re done with it, it’s served you well, and you just want it out of your house, let it go cheaply.

I price things for less than I could probably get, simply because I want them gone immediately. The glorious feeling of the extra space is worth the extra $5 or $10 you might be able to squeeze out of someone.

Join a Facebook buy/sell group in your area for kiddie gear.

I stick with Kijiji for selling furniture and household items, but I find I have much better luck selling kiddie items within these groups. You’re able to post an item that more than 1,000 parents will see instantly, and it will start popping up in people’s newsfeeds as people comment — getting your item even more visibility.

Just pass it on.

If my kids receive an expensive toy or piece of gear, then yes, I’m more likely to sell it once they’ve outgrown it — although still pretty cheaply! But if a friend has passed along an item they no longer need, I pass it along to another friend once we’re finished with it, or I donate it to a resource centre for families.

I don’t think it’s right to sell someone’s hand-me-downs without sharing the profits with them. It’s bad Kijiji karma, or something — and then maybe that hideous exersaucer will come back to haunt you? That would really be torturous.

We didn’t have a picnic table last summer, but it wasn’t for lack of trying.

We almost bought a moderately-discounted one at the beginning of the season, but it just seemed like a lot of money for a pile of wood and a few screws. I was certain we’d be able to get a better deal on one soon.

Well, fast forward three months later, and we still didn’t have a picnic table. They never did go on sale again, and I was too stubborn to give in. So at the beginning of this summer, you can bet we snatched one up at the first inkling of sale!

Once it was put together, I considered just staining the whole thing. But then I saw an inspiring photo on BetterAfter.net, and decided to try my hand at two-toning it.

After all, our porch and deck are two-toned — stain on the horizontal surfaces, white paint on the vertical posts and rails — so they should probably all match, right? (In my world, yes.)

Here’s how I did it:

• I grabbed a leftover can of stain (from staining our sandbox last summer) and brushed a bit across a small section of the table. I let it soak in for a few seconds, and then wiped it with a rag. Staining is much easier than painting, isn’t it? I repeated the process until the full table and both benches were done, and it didn’t take long at all.
• Then I used some leftover white exterior paint (from doing the deck railings last summer) to brighten up the legs of the picnic table. I’m not going to sugar-coat it — it was difficult to reach the underside parts. You don’t realize how many random cross-pieces a picnic table has until you’re sweating and contorting to reach them with a brush. I really should have painted the pieces before assembling — or waiting until the stain was dry, so I could have flipped the table over — but patience is not really my thing.
• Once the white was dry, I did a few touch-ups — and, you know, yanked out the patches of grass that were coated in globs of white paint — and then I was done!

I love projects that I can start and finish in a single afternoon, especially when I can use up materials we have on hand.

We’ve had some BBQ dinners outside on our new table so far, and it’s been great. We had absolutely no seating in our backyard before, so it’s nice to have a spot to sit down, chat with the neighbours, and watch the kids race around the yards.

This project may have another chapter, though. I’ve been thinking of adding something new to the center of the picnic table, like a monogram. I might cut out a paper stencil and paint it on with white, or possibly burn the design into the tabletop.

My husband has a soldering iron that I’d like to steal and mess around with — uh, I mean “that I’d like to borrow, use responsibly, and then carefully put back in its place.”

xo