My Boy's Soft Toys

One has to be almost zen-like to let things go. I've been de-junking my sons' things. They don't appear to have too much of an emotional attachment to these things, anymore. I think it's just me. For those things that still seem special to me as a reminder of their childhood, I find it very difficult to just send them to Goodwill. I want to be able to hand them down to family or friends. That way it doesn't feel like I've sent special things off to an unspecial place.

Two huge boxes of soft toys were in the garage for ages now and The Boys haven't missed them. One might wonder, now how can two boys accumulate so many soft toys? Well, every time we went to Sea World or the Science Museum, we couldn't leave until we'd satisfied BoyB's desire to end the trip in the gift shop. Inevitably, they ended up with a huge collection of soft toy creatures. In addition to that, there were the Pokemons, the Disney and the Sonic the Hedgehog characters. Of course, I am guilty of having added many to their collection as well. They had a lot of fun with them. The soft toys were a captive audience for many of their 'pretend' games. We used to call them their 'pets'.

The pets have been de-junked now. I hauled them all out and gave The Boys (17 and 19!!) one last chance to pick the ones they REALLY want to keep. I am touched that they kept Snakey - the huge snake I made for them out of scraps of fabric. Also spared were: Thumper, Buster Bunny, the Sonics, the Tails and an octopus that BoyB likes to wear on his head. (One Halloween, BoyA insisted I make a ghost costume for Thumper).

We heard that my great nephews (5 and 7 yrs old)were into Pokemon. They were very happy to get them, they don't make them anymore. Then I saved the really interesting ones and shipped them off to my great niece (2 yrs old). I think she might be the only little girl with such strange soft toys like a sting ray and an iguana and a piranha. The rest of the not-so-unusual soft toys were hauled off to Goodwill.

And as the de-clutter books always say to do, I took a picture and let it go.