The Toy Box Massacre

Now that Calen's birthday is over, the integrity of the foundation of our house is compromised due to the weight of the toy box. 

Usually after Christmas and birthdays we sort through the toy box and move things on that Calen hasn't played with in 100 years. Some are still good and I'll move them on to other kids (or throw them in safe keeping for Cam to play with in a few years). Some have been stomped on, thrown off a cliff into burning lava very well loved and need to be thrown away completely.

Usually I'm extremely clever and go through the toy box when the children are sleeping so that they won't even notice that certain forgotten toys collecting microbes on the bottom of the toy box are missing.

This time I was not as clever.

The boys were eating lunch. Calen was at his booster seat at the table. Which directly overlooks the toy box and the bookshelf type thing we have next to it that also holds toys and games.

So when I went over to the toy box with an empty Hefty trash bag, he had a front row view of what was about to happen.

The toy box is ALL his stuff. Cam's baby toys are in a basket in the bookshelf. So the toy box therefore is sacred ground (to a three year old). 

And there's mom opening the toy box holding a trash bag. I might as well have been holding an AK-47 in front of a bunch of blindfolded hostages.

I dig through the box and start pulling things out and putting them in the bag. They haven't been played with in MONTHS. They're on the very bottom of the box, collecting dust and God-knows what other organisms. They're probably even breeding. Calen doesn't even know they exist anymore.

I feel his little eyes burning through the back of my head. I tried to hide what I was doing. But I couldn't, and the inevitable happened.

"Mommy I want play with dump truck" 

It's a baby toy dump truck that he hasn't cared about since he was 1. He only has 391 other big boy dump trucks.

"Mommy I want play bike" 

I was only moving his bicycle outside...we had only brought it inside because it was raining, and then forgot about it for a week as it became "part of the house". He never even touched it.

"Mommy I want play this" 

Camden's cloth bibs that mistakenly ended up in there. 

"Mommy I want play this!!"

Cardboard.

"Mommy I want play this PLEASE!!"

A candy wrapper. I'm not even kidding.

Everything I pulled out, whether it be old toys he didn't care about, baby items or literal garbage, he suddenly NEEDED it right AT THAT MOMENT. And even when I would say "Calen, it's garbage!" or "No, it's time to give this to another little boy!" he would get so MAD and say "NO Mommy not give other boy!!!"

Over things he hadn't cared about in MONTHS.

This is the face of a sad deprived boy who's mom threw away ALL his toys. (Whatever, don't let those sad eyes fool you. His toy box is STILL overflowing).

He let me have it for a good while. Begging to play with these stupid items that he didn't REALLY care about, he just didn't appreciate me taking things out of HIS toy box and putting them in a trash bag and the potential of ever playing with them again was gone.

How rude of me.

I filled the trash bag full of old toys (and garbage..like cardboard...that he NEEDED) and put it outside (so he couldn't open it up and have an old toy rescue mission). The toy box was half empty and could fit all his new toys. 

Mission accomplished.

But to Calen it might as well have been a massacre.

For about 20 minutes.

Then he forgot all about the toys that he had already forgotten about once before.

See, I'm not that mean of a parent.

And then I took a trash bag to Cam's closet and threw away ALL of his clothes. (Gullible people are fun.)

 

 

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