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Both of my sons have had birthdays in the past week. Between the presents my husband and I gave them, a joint birthday party with friends bearing gifts and the inevitable toy avalanche known as grandparents, it’s safe to say we are drowning in toys. With Christmas now less than one month away, I thought it would be a good thing if we cleaned out the toy box. (Of doom. That’s how I refer to it: The toy box of DOOM.) Surprisingly, the boys were eager to lend a hand this year.
The toy box in question. The toys outside the toy box have already moved on.
We made a three piles on the playroom floor: Keep, Donate and Toss.
The keep pile is obvious: the toys that the boys still play with and/or that mommy refuses to part with at this point in time. Examples include everything from their large Cars 2 collection to Buzz, Woody and the gang to a bunch of awesome dinosaurs to a ton of fire trucks. This pile was obviously quite big in size, because they honestly still play with much of what they have. They're six and four. Toys are still good.
The toss pile was somewhat troublesome for the boys. Any broken or single-pieces to a since lost set got put in this pile. There was a broken, off-brand “light saber” that lit up -- at one point in time -- but was since cracked and useless. Coins that went in the Piggy Bank that was donated last year. Pegs from the hammer peg board that has been gone for years. Small broken pieces from various toys over the years. Despite the useless nature of the pile, looking at the toys that were being thrown out proved a bit harder for them. “But mommy, I liked that.” I explained, over and over, that it didn’t work and no child could use it. They eventually relented.
The donate pile was the hardest for me. I always gave the boys an option whether we should keep or donate any given toy. My heart broke right in half when I held up their singing Blue’s Clues stuffed animal. It was actually given to us by another firefighter family before our oldest son was born, so it has always been a part of our toy box. I have semi-fond memories of accidentally stepping on Blue’s ear in the nursery in the middle of the night, only to wake up a sleeping baby with a rousing rendition of the Blue’s Clue’s theme -- being barked. Both boys loved that dog, but they told me it could go.
“Are you sure?” I pressed her ear so that she would sing to us again. Maybe her little barks would revive some nostalgic pre-memory memories in their little brains, tug at their tiny heartstrings. Turns out that her battery is dead. No barking Blue’s Clues theme or a hearty “Bow-bow-BOW!” Nothing. She has served her time in our family. And into the donation pile she went.
After we sorted through many of their favorite toys and made a quite sizable donation pile of gently -- but deeply -- loved toys, we looked around the clean playroom with sense of accomplishment. And then...
“Mommy, do you think we should give away the play kitchen too?” I looked at my older son. I knew he hadn’t played with it in a few years. I then looked at my younger son, who has been known to bring me plates of imaginary goodies as recently as this summer. But summer has been over for awhile; the seasons of our toys have changed. “What do you think, Booey? Should we give the play kitchen to a little girl or boy who needs one?” He thought. He thought hard. I saw him go back and forth. Eventually he said, “Mommy, I don’t really like it anymore. We can give it away to another kid, but I’d really like to keep the tool bench.” I assured him that he could keep both if he felt that he would still play with both, and he said that he was done with the kitchen.
I sighed and said okay. I gave them high fives for helping me clean, for organizing their toys, for giving up things that they weren’t using any more so that other kids could have something new to play with. But my heart kind of broke. No more
