The Rat Pack

I am starting to see pack rat tendencies in my sons. I don't blame them - I blame heredity, because God knows, they come by it naturally. The amount of "stuff" we have is starting to overwhelm me. It is mostly toys and most of them they don't even remember they have and rarely, if ever play with. My friend is having a garage sale in a couple weeks and asked me if I had anything to put in it. Having just had my own sale in May where I sent almost all the remaining items to Goodwill, I told her I did not. But playing in the basement with Evan this morning, not even being able to walk without stepping on parts to toy after toy after toy - I started thinking that Christmas is coming up and the amount of new "stuff" that would be adding to the piles might mean we needed to purge a bit.

I started pulling out some random unplayed with items and telling the boys we would put them in a garage sale. They would cry out "NO! You can't put that in a sale - We love that" or "Not that - that is my favorite!" Mind you, this is stuff they could not pick out as theirs in a lineup if their lives depended on it. I feel for them, I really do. I was the same way as a kid and still am to this day. I don't like to get rid of stuff - I have to fight my genetic makeup to do it. The only garage sale we ever had growing up - I was 22 years old I think. It was hard to watch people buy my stuff. I can't imagine the damage it would have done if I had been younger. I don't know why exactly I have such an attachment to things. I watch Clean Sweep - I get that the "things" are not important, they are not love. As a kid I always thought of things to have feelings - even food - leftovers had to be split into equal parts so they had friends in the trash. Ask my sister about that - how much guilt eating was done over leftovers on a plate. Therapy anyone? I am much better now - I have had several of my own garage sales and I have to admit that it feels really good to get rid of stuff that is weighing you down in a mental sense. I feel so much better when stuff is uncluttered and organized.

Then there is the gluing. I include this in part of the pack ratness because - "Why throw something out when you can fix it?" This really only pertains to Spencer since Evan is still pretty much a glue novice. Spencer was fooling around the other day and broke one of his wooden nesting dolls. Shattered it! It was almost surreal, because watching it happen, you just wouldn't think it would break that way. It did and the tears came instantly and I told him probably a little too harshly that was what happens when you horse around with your stuff. He looked at me with his tear stained face and said "But we can GLUE it!" There is the DNA again. I was a gluer! I remember one instance near Christmas time where my sister came bounding down the stairs and knocked one of the ceramic three wise men on to the granite tile floor. Shatter! My mom reacted pretty much the same way I did with Spence and as Dana ran sobbing to her room in shame, the Gluemaster (me) worked her magic and the wise man is still with us to this day.

Spencer's nesting doll is glued and resting comfortably waiting for some touch up paint - I still have the gift.