This weekend was cleaning up time – one of those days when the twins get down to the big task. H and N recently got new beds and have been on a bit of an overdrive to keep their room neat. Boy am I grateful! As I glanced at the sack of toys and clothes they’d set aside I found myself picking out and saving up things, quite like they pick out and save thing when I am doing the cleaning! Some weird role-reversal, this!
Have you ever found that you are more attached to some of your children’s toys than they are? I discovered today that I was!
First, there is the blue-haired doll a dear friend of mine got for her when N turned two. She is dressed up all in turquoise (not pink!) to match her hair. N named her Shanti (because at that point they were watching Jungle Book every single day) carried her everywhere, ate with her, slept with her and celebrated her birthday. Shanti helped keep the Barbies at bay. N never did develop a passion for them.
And there was the green-haired one called Pony whose leg kept coming off and I had to keep stitching it back on.
Then there was H’s gada – his all powerful mace. It was his absolute super power. He watched television with it on his lap. He carried it everywhere, even when we went visiting or when he was invited to a party.
There was the boy-doll my sister got him because he wanted a doll ‘just like N’ but not a ‘girl-doll’. And so after much research a ‘boy-doll’ was found; actually it was a girl doll with short hair but H never knew the difference.
There was H’s kitchen set that he spent hours cooking at, his dinosaur army (apparently all of them fought each other to extinction), N’s tiny dressing table at which she’d sit like lady ‘drying’ her hair till she could fit on the stool no more and many many more. I let some of them go rather reluctantly even while I cling to others even now, as I wonder at how fickle kids can be.
But then probably the toys don’t hold the same meaning for them as they do for me. For them, beloved as they might be, they are just toys, which they will outgrow at some point.. and thank goodness for that.
To me, however, they are not just toys. They are bits of people I love and who love the children in turn. They are signs of affection and caring.
They are a reminder of how innocent the kids were before the outside world and peer pressure changed them and fitted them into stupid stereotypes. Yeah, unfortunately that’s happening already.
Most of all I hold on to them because they are a bit of the kids’ childhood, a bit, I perhaps, never really want to let go.
Picture Credit: PIXABAY
Linking up with Mackenzie at Reflections from Me.
