(trying to) let go

There was a time when we watched grandson a lot more than we do these days.  When he was a newborn and through to his preschool days we pretty much watched him two or three days/evenings a week or he was over playing during that time.  So naturally we had toys for him to play with, appropriate ones for whatever age he was at the time.  He is now six years old and has outgrown some of the recent toys he used to play with.  The rattles and the baby toys have been donated or passed on a few years back and I need to donate/pass on some of the toys he played with as a preschooler because he has moved on from playing with them but I can't let them go because of the fun times we had with them.

We had a lot of the Little People toys.  Like this airplane.  We did many an adventure with it and a few crashes along the way.  When you put the pilot in the pilot's seat in the front, songs would play.  The Little People danced many a dance.  How can I part with this?

Or this fire truck? We put out so many fires with it and saved so many communities.

Or the circus train where we put all the Little People we had in there to escape from the lava, going back to rescue those we had left behind, making sure all were safe and secure.

And the Mega Block towers we built, trying to build them as high as we could without them falling over.

And the army men who we would set up to do battle against each other, only to have them all knocked down, to reset them again, time after time.

Some of the books we would read before bedtime when he would be picked up late in the night after a shift at the restaurant son worked at.

The puzzles built.

The shopping cart that he would fill up with toys to take from one room to another to play with.  The many miles traveled from room to room when he was just learning to walk.

And my personal all time favorite.  The bath toy penguins.  When he would be picked up late, we would bathe him and have him ready for bed.  He loved his baths.  These toys were the best.  Water squirted out of the hats of the penguins.  The rings floated with the penguins in them.  He would spend a good 45 minutes in the bathtub playing.  With schedule changes and the like, we stopped giving him baths a few years ago and now at age six, he takes showers and prefers his privacy now that he has matured :) 

And so many others on these shelves.  Most he hasn't played with in a little while or will pull them out and play with them for a little bit then put them back.  

Now he is into Legos (we do have a big bin of them) and games on my phone (a whole different post for another day) but so many of these toys are part of yesteryear.  I know it is time to sort through them and pass them on or pack them away for another generation as their family is complete, but I am having trouble parting with them.....

I'll eventually figure out what to do with them.  So many fun days of play.  So many fun days ahead with what interests he will continue to develop as he grows.  Thankful we can be such an integral part of his growing up times, even if it means the hot desert heat  four months of the year.

(Some of my long time readers who have been with me from previous blogs might remember some of these toys as I did a couple of blog posts about them being his favorite back on my "A Bench with a View" blog).  

(Note, we keep the pool toys inside just in case of a monsoon with the high winds we can get.  Before, when we kept them outside, they would blow all over the backyard.)

(Yes, this is the room where the treadmill is.  He had his toys in the den when he was a baby but as he became mobile, he somehow always wanted to play in the "treadmill room" as we call it.  So I eventually moved all his toys there and it is considered also his playroom).  

I had a helper when I was putting this post together.  

Enjoy each day that is given to you.  They truly do pass in the blink of an eye!