Toys

I have a thing for toys.  I mean, I like them as much as my kids.  Probably more, sometimes.

I am completely charmed by the faces and the back stories and the tiny proportions and the magic of what could be made up in their tiny worlds.  The itty bitty accessories and conversations that they hold in my head hold me captive, even now, in my mid-forties.  I can hold the toys of my childhood and I can smell my mom baking bread and the wet dirt under the bushes where my brother and I played.  I am completely in their tiny, fixed plastic clutches.

I hold on to a lot of the kids' toys for two reasons:  1) because there was always a sibling coming behind that would want/need them, and 2) because they tend to loop in interests.  They are completely obsessed for years, and the toys become a part of the fabric of our family, and then suddenly, a switch flips, and could not care less.  But, fairly often, they also abruptly remember them and we need to acquire them again.  These loops made me nuts because they were expensive to be purchased a second time, if they were even available. 

But as we are coming to the end of our baby years, I am facing going through all the rubbermaids that hold their childhood, and it is a daunting task.  It is horrifying in the sheer time it will require.  It is nauseating to face the things that will need to be trashed after being exposed the the swings in temperature that Georgia offers in an attic.  And the tiny friends that will need to be donated is just selfishly hard on me.  Disposing of magic feels so wrong.

But it needs to be done.  Because it's time.