It was a time that I was aware would come sooner or later. But I was certainly not prepared for it, not last weekend any way.
As the Patterson home completed some floor renovations to our children’s bedrooms, we spent the last several days rummaging through all the items that we removed from their rooms to complete the project. Our house has looked like a war zone, with a decade’s worth of three children’s toys, clothes, gadgets and other furniture items piled together in the middle of our house.
My husband Jason and I also decided that we would use this opportunity to purge some of the unnecessary items and clothes before they headed back into their new rooms. Other than a few outfits that held special memories, it was easy to pile all the tattered play clothes and worn shoes into garbage bags.
Jase, being only eight years old, did not want to part with many of his toys. Not that I can blame him. He still plays with most, if not all, of his toy trucks, dinosaurs and stuffed animals.
Our oldest son James, who is about as tall as I am now, grew out of the “toy stage” a long time ago. But he impressed me with his tiny attention to detail with every sport card and piece of memorabilia he had, placing them into collector bins.
But it was our daughter Elsie’s cleansing method that was the tear-jerker. Being 11 years old, she is in that stage of young life when she is not a little kid so much yet not quite a teenager. She has traded her toys for face masks, jewelry, fingernail polish, and so forth. I knew it was coming, but I wasn’t ready for it. And neither was Jason.
“We need to keep your toy box for storage,” I said, getting ready to drag it into her bedroom. “And it serves as a bench too so you can have a place to sit or put your dolls.”
“Let me go through it first,” she said. “I don’t want my dolls anymore, and there is a bunch of toys in there that I don’t want anymore. I can put my purses in there instead.”
My heart dropped to the bottom of my feet. And Jason’s face had a look of sheer sadness.
“You don’t want any of your toys,” Jason asked. “Surely, you will want to keep some of them. Maybe throw away the ones that are broke or something?”
“No, Daddy,” Elsie replied, already getting a garbage bag ready. “I don’t need them anymore. They are just taking up space.”
It was a heart-wrenching scene for Jason and me as we watched little Elsie cleanse through 11 years of toys and dolls. Before we knew it, a pile of garbage was by our kitchen door. Dolls that Elsie slept with so hard that their hair was tangled, dresses faded, were there. A Barbie travel van and camper set were there. Disney princesses and their castle homes were there. Tiaras and ballgowns were there. Everything seemed to be there…
“This is making me tear up,” Jason said, reluctantly holding another bag for Elsie to put some toys in.
“Why,” Elsie asked, with no idea. “I just don’t play with them anymore.”
When Elsie was finished, Jason and I took a step back and looked over at the pile of toys alone in the kitchen. It was as if an era was over, and there was nothing we could do about it.
With the rooms complete, Elsie watched a movie on her bed and began to place her hairbrushes, fingernail polish and purses in their proper place. There were a few dolls left, only her favorite ones. But other than that, there were no toys left.
“It is kind of sad,” Jason said, lifting Elsie’s garbage bags in the back of his truck.
“We had to do the same thing with James,” I reminded him.
“But it is different with my little girl,” he replied.
And he was right. It seemed different that our little girl was trading Barbie for face masks, trading dolls for shoes, and trading castles for face mask coolers.
It helped our hearts a little when we heard the movie playing in her room. It was a cartoon about a little bird looking for his nest. And even though she was surrounded by her next stage in life, there was still that “little kid” at heart.
Getting ready for bed, I heard our youngest son Jase in his room. He was proud of his new floors and the new layout. But he was ready to get back to normal.
And right before I stuck my head in to remind him to brush his teeth, I saw him on the floor, with a mountain of trucks surrounding him.
“This new floor makes my truck speed faster,” he said, with a grin.
He quickly went back to flying a toy truck in the air before slamming it on a pile of crushed plastic rocks. Spitting out engine noises and yelling when a truck crashed, I couldn’t help but smile. One day, he will want to put his toys away too.
And then that will be the end of the final era.
“Throw him on top of Grave Digger,” James said, pointing to a truck, before leaving the room.
But maybe, just maybe, they will remember what it was like to be a kid, to play, even if they continue to grow.
Closing the door, Jase continued to do just that…play. And I prayed he did it for a little bit longer.
