Who's learning the lesson here?

If I have to hear from the family, just one more time, how the kids have SO MANY TOYS & SO MANY CLOTHES, I may strangle them. Collectively or even one by one. It just makes me twinge when I am told how they themselves had only one doll, or one suitcase/drawer of clothes, and my kids have SO MUCH.

They do, I admit it, but I find it very funny when basically the people making the comments are buying the kids, well the clothes and the toys. My lovely Mom was looking after the kids for one day, and in that one day my son secured a new Batman and my daughter was cuddling a new doll. But this doll kicks when you turn the bottle. Uh huh, OK Mom!

Recently I converted the office, that was basically being used for storage, into a toy room. I try to organize it, and it just eventually becomes a disaster zone, the only thing that saves me is that I can close the door on the disaster. Isn't that a good thing though, doesn't that mean they are PLAYING with the toys if it's a disaster?

When my son was about 18 months, we bought him some Take Along Thomas the Trains. They worked brilliantly, as they were cheaper than the wooden ones, and they would attach at the magnet everytime and not repel each other, which would drive my boy to tears of frustration when they wouldn't work IMMEDIATELY!



When his sister came home from the hospital, she brought a gift of Thomas trains to her big brother. He kept kissing her and playing with the trains, he was so enamoured with her because of it. Jackson has played with those trains for almost two years, he loved yellow Duncan and orange Rusty, as the chips in their paint can attest to that, but now nothing.



He's moved on to Superheros and the next thing to go is the Cars, I can feel it.


Since my husband also complains of the toys, I informed him that we could trade in the trains. He gave me a funny look, and asked if I was sure, he mentioned that some of those trains were hard to get and that Jackson, may be into it at the prospect of new toys, but when it gets to the time to give them away, it may be different story.


I gave the man the whole, OhMyGod with the hand flick, and reminded him of WHO complains about the toys buddy!?

So I gathered up all the toys and decided to have a chat with my boy. I informed him that we could go to a store and trade in his toys for new toys. He immediately said yes, and we packed up the trains & stations and away we went. Men WHAT do they KNOW? Hey this was also a good lesson to learn, I mean make room for a new toy by getting rid of the ones that you don't use, simple but yet valuable. Jackson handed his trains & stations to the toy assesor and told us it would take about 10 minutes for him to go through and give us a total.

And then, all of a sudden, I had this GIANT LUMP in my throat. I think I kind of hoped that Jackson would throw a Class V tantrum and refuse, or maybe I wasn't expecting this lack of disregard for the trains, the way he just let them go with no emotion. I mean the trains, the trains that we bought in Seattle when we went to my SIL's wedding and they were hidden in his tux, the time we hunted high and low for Duncan at the cabin, or the one popcorn car we found when Jackson decided that popcorn with butter was a GOOD thing, or the ones that he got from Easty when we brought her home from the hospital, or the ones that Grandpa bought him for Christmas, OHMyGOD this was a MISTAKE!

Jackson was halfway to the store section and I just couldn't ask for them back now, if he didn't care, why should I?

Dammit, I guess I am the Sentimental Hoarding Collector of the family, who doesn't want to let go of the trains that one little boy just LOVED so much, or maybe its that I don't want my little boy to grow up, this fast, so soon, i'm so not ready.