So I got done pissed off this morning. The boy has been cleaning his room like his father used to clean his own room…stuffing things under the bed, in the drawers, next to the toy chest, and the worst of it was a chewed piece of gum between 2 books…*insert blech face here*

and I’ll be super honest here… I have not wanted to go in my son’s room because of how disorganized it was in there, but I had no idea the level of grossness that lurked in there.

So I went on a tiny little mission…to get the SHIT OUT OF HIS ROOM

at first it was done out of a place of anger.  I started throwing all the trash in a bag and I bagged stuff to list on freecycle.  A woman wanted dinosaurs for her son so that is where I started and it became a sort of madness after that.  A bag of transformers, a bag of random mcdonalds toys and assorted figures that had none of their weapons, etc. 

One bag went to a daycare, another to a little boy with autism (the dinosaurs), another to a Transformer collector, so some good came of it too.

As box after box was emptied and bag after bag was placed on the porch for pick up, I became less angry.  I wasn’t completely heartless, I saved toys he actually does play with like Ben 10 and Bakugan and this really cool rocket launcher he got as a school prize…but stuff he hasn’t played with since Sean was born? Come ON.

So the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles found a new home and so did the Incredibles toys and some old Justice League guys…

The most important part for me (and it did not phase Zach one bit, so no worries) is that I gave away the last 2 toys my grandfather ever bought for Zach.  Imaginext Knights and a Playmobil Treasure Chest.  It’s almost brought me a bittersweet feeling when he’s played with these toys in the past ever since my grandfather died, but lately these poor things have been collecting dust and Sean hasn’t been really all that interested.  So now someone else is enjoying these things.  Sean did keep one dragon disc shooter because he helped collect all the discs from the bottom of the box, so it’s not all gone.  The important lesson here though is that I let go of something that represented a tangible memory for me…and he is no less real or memorable to me by having done so, nor to the kids.

And here is the kicker of the day.  This is a boy who started off the day pissing me off with the state of his room and ended up melting my heart just moments ago…

Zach said to me “Now that toys I didn’t play with anyway are gone, when you tell me to clean up it won’t take me so long and then you and I can spend more time together” SNIFF, oh my, pass me a hanky, baby!

And he just told Sean ‘You should get rid of some of your toys too and then we can play with our favorite stuff’

THIS is the justification and the approval I needed to feel like I was doing the right thing. I feel like I’m teaching them the right things - to value time together vs. stuff (not to say stuff isn’t fun, but too much is TOO MUCH)

Thank you boys, thank you.