Spirit of Giving

12/7/2013

Whether you believe me or not, it's sometimes very difficult to have something to write about.  I know you're thinking with my gift of gab, what's the problem.Benjamin slept over last night and Mom Mom and Pop Pop definitely did not get much sleep!  Even so, no complaints coming from Jeff and I, just sometimes wish he wasn't all legs!

After finishing the paper, which is mostly destined for the recycling pile, and drinking my second cup of coffee, I was suffering from writer's block.  I just couldn't think of anything to blog about, until Benjamin started up a campaign to get rid of his old toys.  I immediately knew what I would write bout today.
 
Over the years buying toys for Benjamin has been a lot of fun and it's possible that I may have bought too many! But buying for a small child is such a joy, particularly when your own children have become adults and are very hard to buy for.

While sitting in the living room doing one of my easy crossword puzzles, Benjamin decided that today would be a very good day to give away some of his toys.   This was a no prompt idea and I was delighted that he wanted to give away toys he's outgrown to other children.  Next thing I knew Benjamin was dragging out all of the toys for "review".  Some toys deemed to be "baby" toys were immediately pushed into a pile to give away.  Once that initial toss/keep job was done, he emptied out all the remaining toys that I keep in large canvas containers. Unfortunately, each toy he pulled out was like brand new again and he had to play with each and every one!  This obviously slowed down the cleaning out of toys, but he was genuinely happy to see these old toys he hasn't played with in a very long time.  I loved the fact that he really grasped the concept of giving away toys to other children.   I thought it was a beautiful thing for a five year old to understand that there were children who could use and/or want the toys he has outgrown.

Of course like any good Bassett, distraction is par for the course!  I now have in the living room piles of toys and the what is staying and what is going keeps changing minute by minute.  I am confident at the end of the day, we will really have a nice collection of toys for charity.  For the most part Benjamin has been very generous with giving.  While some of my toy storage places are a bit empty today, I am sure that after Christmas, we'll have some new toys to fill up those empty spaces!

While I was helping Benjamin clean out his toys, I found several stockpiles of old and unneeded papers which all ended up being fed to the shredder - very satisfying!

Have a great Saturday.  Our forecast for tomorrow back here looks a little iffy, maybe snow or rain.  Who knows for sure. I think the only thing the weathermen can agree on is that some kind of weather is going to blow through here tomorrow. 

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