Much to my dismay, it's once again time to rid ourselves of some clutter by holding a garage sale. You might think that I'm dreading all the prep work involved or haggling with people over a lousy quarter. Nope. What is saddening me is that the boys have pretty much outgrown all their toys. I used to think, "Man, I can't wait to clear all this stuff out." Now that they've moved on, all I see in the stuff that's going away are the memories and WHY it all came into the house in the first place: to help rescue our sweet boys. Every toy, game, video, EVERYTHING that came into this house for a 4 year time frame was lovingly selected to fulfill a very specific developmental need. To me, it's not an Ants in the Pants game, it's how he learned to take turns. It's not just a ball pit, it's the only place I could get him to interact with me for a very long time. It's not just a toy barn, it's where we closed countless communication circles. It's not just a beat up toy drum set, it's the sheer joy on his face when he opened it at a time when joy was hard to come by. And it goes on and on... I was unprepared and unwilling to go back to that time yet again. You see, in the early days, I developed a couple of coping mechanisms that I still rely heavily upon. 1. Keep unbelievably busy. This never seems to be problem.
2. Keep pushing forward, whether you want to or not. We were racing time here, literally. Push, push, push, go, go, go....those developmental windows were closing, the first at age three, then at age six, and once they close you have to work twice as hard to get half the result. This one has served us well, to the point that I really don't want to remember the bittersweetness of that time that was far more bitter than sweet, I just want to focus on where they are right now and think about not only how far they've come, but just how far they have to go and how to fulfill God's plans for them.
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