J.A.
I guess I was naive and thought it would be futile to reason with a 2 year old (LOL!) so when mine starting doing this (mainly because he loved the "rain" of legos as they fell), I made a shelf attached low to the wall (in the toy room, though, not my living room) and anchored in studs. I then took 4 baskets from the dollar store (half the size of a regular laundry basket) and screwed the bottom to the shelf... a picnic bench (the part you sit on, not the table) instead of a shelf would work too if you somehow attach it to the wall so they cant tip it over. He still managed to make a mess, but he had to do it by hand! He was a little frustrated at first, but that gnat's like attention span came in handy and he quickly forgot about it.