|
|
Author: nik
Posted: 2007-12-20 13:32:43
|
I cleaned out the toy boxes awhile ago and got rid of some old broken toys and things the kids never play with anymore, anticipating the arrival of new toys for their birthdays and Christmas. The flaw in my plan? I asked my 4-year old daughter to help me decide which ones to toss.
Today, I wouldn't make such a mistake. But I was a novice toy thrower-outer, and I made a rookie mistake that proved to be costly. Our 4-year-old, Claire immediately threw a fit at the thought of parting with any of her stuff. I have no words for the scene that ensued.
I'm not even talking expensive toys, or neat toys with a little break, but rather a tiny beach ball that no longer holds air, a part of a broken toy from a "Happy Meal" that some other child LEFT at McDonald's, and we found and took home and other assorted broken toy parts.
Since that day, my friends with older children told me, "Oh, don't ever do that—use a black garbage bag, seal the toys up and take them out of the house right away." Why don't they tell you this in parenting school?
Now several weeks later Claire is still asking about that McDonald's toy.
Even though I am weary of this attitude, I wonder if I act like a child sometimes, clinging to stuff from the past? I hold on to things that were never that good in the first place, or that lost their usefulness long ago. I hang on to habits that get me nowhere. The desire for rigid structure in my schedule is "broken" now that children occupy my days with their own schedules. Yet I keep trying to blow air back into that leaky beach ball because it once worked really well, or so I tell myself. Or that parenting style that my friend uses works well for her, so I'll cling to it rather than admit that it doesn't work for me at all. And truth be told, it doesn't always work for her either. I cry out that "It's my favorite stuff," even though I really don't like it. And I imagine God saying, "I've got some great stuff in store for you, but first you've got to unclutter your life and dump the trash." |
|
Keep track of us with Granny's Jack Booted
