I knew it was going to be difficult to take back my so called man cave, it's never been mine to begin with. Pretty much from the moment we decided to finish off the space there has been kids toys everywhere. I have tried without much success making an adult only area, but who am I kidding, it's become basically a kids cave over the past few years.
Part of the problem is me.
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It's been my responsibilty to clean out some of the old toys, mainly the baby ones that they no longer play with. Normally you would think that this would be an easy thing to do, but I've gotten really attached to these toys and amazingly, I CAN"T LET THEM GO. There are memories in these toys that I just can't seem to shake. I can vividly picture times where me and the boys would be playing with certain things, and it gets me sad.
If there is an underlying theme to this blog it's that I am having a hard time seeing my kids grow up. You probably would have thought it's about mine and my boys obsession with legos, that is partly the case, but not a week goes by that I don't look at them and see what big kids they have become.
A trip into my basement is a trip back in time.
I look to my right and there is one of those Fisher Price talking seats. I can imagine little Carter sitting in it and flipping through the little attached book and hearing it say "The kitty says meow." Or there is a little Elmo table that Tyler used to pull himself up to when he first started to stand up. I can still hear Cookie Monster saying, "C is for cookies, that's good enough for me. Yum yum yum." You see where I am going with this, everywhere that I turn I am reminded that EVERYONE is getting a little bit older. I know that they won't play with these toys anymore and my wife and I are probably NOT going to have any more kids, so here they sit, batteries dying hoping that one day maybe they get played with once again.
Only I know that they won't.
There are boxes of toys that the kids used to play with. It seems now that the only thing that they are interested in are video games. The TV that I bought with hopes of watching endless sporting events has turned into the boys own little arcade. I don't mind that so much, at least they enjoy it. I just need them to realize how much they enjoyed playing with all of their old toys.
The best thing for us to do is get rid of these things, donate them to people that will use them. They are not doing any good on the floor of my basement, only making it harder and harder for me to let go of them. One day all of these toys will be gone but my basement will still be full.
Full of memories.
