Are you serious?

This is the picture of the crap that runs my life. This is a fork that came with the girls' Beauty and the Beast Polly Pocket set. How, let me ask you dear reader, am I supposed to keep track of not one but FOUR of these things so that when my two daughters have a Polly Pocket dinner party no one is short a utensil? Hell hath no fury like a Polly who has to eat with her hands or the sister whose Polly it is.

I have devised a pretty fail-safe system of Polly storage - a large, plastic storage bin with a lid and within said bin a smaller plastic storage bin for all these tiny parts. Don't even get me started on the shoes. Polly is the Imelda Marcos of the doll world besting even the likes of Barbie. Even with this system in place I still need to obsessively check my floors for these tiny treasures before I vacuum to prevent the torrent of tears that follows a piece's mysterious disappearance.

I'm not sure if my daughters are particularly OCD about this stuff or if it's an inherently female trait to be organized at a young age. I have heard tales of a tackle box my husband used as a child to store his Lite Bright pieces by color (back off ladies, he's my nerd). So if it's not gender based, perhaps genetic? In the land of toys I'm sure there is a boy equivalent to the Lilliputian Polly Pocket accessories , but I am looking forward to the day Polly leaves our lives for good and I have only my youngest's (a boy) toys to deal with. Then again, ask me in five years when I'm scrabbling under my couch looking for microscopic car tires.