We were having some friends over yesterday. Part of the visit would involve multiple children playing in the boys' room. Since that area is usually about a declaration short of a disaster area, we spent much of Saturday cleaning up their room.
Toys in general are much easier to acquire. When I was a child, we had many fewer physical toys. It was much easier to keep my room neat because once you fixed the bed and picked up the dirty clothes, it didn't take long to pack the toys away in a closet. With my boys, the exact opposite is true. It's relatively easy to pick up the clothes and fix the bed. It's the toys that are the challenge!
There are mounds of building blocks made of wood, cardboard, and foam. There are MegaBlox sets; some of them are still in half-completed stages. There are deconstructed and reconstructed Lego in massive quantities. There are parts to games and puzzles strewn everywhere. There are planes, trains, and automobiles of every sort and size. Now and then, a superhero or two sneaks into the mix. There are cards and books and tracks and random pieces of paper with prized drawings that only a modernist could love. Behind all of the action are the dozens of stuffed animals that are the central characters in much of the imaginary world they inhabit.
Since the boys are now seven and five, there are a number of toys they have long since outgrown. Some of the noisier ones used to play the alphabet or a few numbers. After hundreds of repeats, their little batteries have faded and they have long since lost their voices. Others are toys that they loved as toddlers but are no longer needed.
In an effort to clear some space, I had them select the ones they felt they no longer needed. To my surprise, they ended up picking out enough pieces to fill three large kitchen trash bags. The best of the toys will eventually find new homes with other children who will hopefully love them and pass them forward.
While I was glad to straighten up their rooms (at least for a few hours), I also felt a twinge of sadness. These plastic pieces once held a lot of love in them. Maybe I've associated them with the innocence of an earlier age. Of course, keeping them won't magically transform the boys into their smaller, younger selves. Still, it's often hard to separate the memory from the object.
I had originally thought it was a big step for my little people. Perhaps it was a also a little step for a big one, too.
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