Last week I broke the law. I committed a felony
– one so heinous that only a mother who loves her child could
commit this crime and not be sorry.
Last week I broke the law. I committed a felony – one so heinous that only a mother who loves her child could commit this crime and not be sorry.
I cleaned out Junior’s toy box while he was at school.
Yes, it’s shocking. But I had to do it. And I’d do it again, no matter what. Because, like most children his age, Junior has far too many toys. But he won’t part with any of them, unless I commit a crime.
In fact, Junior still has his most annoying toy ever. It’s a small radio that plays a tinny version of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.” I never hated that song until I heard it 1,904 times in a single morning. Then I wanted to smash it.
But I’m a mom. I maintained my composure and hid it on top of the refrigerator. Once my nightmares of tiny radios attacking me ended, I gave it back to Junior. That was four years ago and I still regret that decision.
But not last week. Last week, I attacked that toy box and that radio. I was armed with a full box of Hefty bags and I was not afraid to use them.
Cleaning a child’s toy box requires a great deal of skill. You have to be strong enough to get through the layers of toys buried in the box. It’s like an archeological dig. Each layer gives you a glimpse into your child’s life. And that’s dangerous. Many moms have gone through the toy box, only to keep several toys for sentimental reasons. To truly clean a toy box, you need to go through the layers without emotion. You are a machine used only for cleaning the toy box. Save the emotion for boo-boo kisses, not for toy trashing.
The first thing you do is open the toy box. This is easier said than done. But once you’ve accomplished this, you will find the top layer of toys. In Junior’s case, the entire top layer was remote controls – without the cars. In fact, I never found a car that matched any of the remotes.
The next few layers were the dead toy layers. These are the toys that Junior won’t part with – even though they are broken. I found dinosaurs without tails and under-inflated basketballs here.
After that was the weapons layer. Now, I tried to avoid this layer. I’ve never given Junior a weapon. So while all the other testosterone-laden boys were running around our neighborhood shooting each other with fake pistols, Junior shot people with a buck-naked Ken doll. He held Ken’s legs, bent him in an “L” shape and pretended that bullets shot out of Ken’s head. I don’t want to know where he loaded the pretend bullets.
After the weapons, I got to the bottom. This is where all Happy Meal toys go to die. They slowly sink to the last layer and are never heard from again. These toys alone took up one Hefty bag. There was some spare change too, but I kept that. I should get hazard pay just for cleaning Junior’s room, let alone his toy box.
Of course, when Junior got home, he immediately realized I had committed the crime of toy box cleaning. But he wasn’t angry. You see, instead of tossing that old radio, I left it on the top layer. And together, Junior and I listened to “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” until I got a headache.
It was a wonderful, heartfelt moment until Junior shot me with the Ken doll. Some things never change. Thank goodness.
Laurie Sontag is a Gilroy stay at home mom who wishes parenthood had come with a how-to guide. She can be reached at
am************@ya***.com
