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Thursday, September 2, 2010

Toy Story

What I'm about to write may sound like the story of Toy Story 3. Except that it's a true story. And I really don't have the perspective of the toys in my situation. When I went away to University, I spent five years away from home. My little rocking chair, my doll furniture, my 8th grade sewing material, all my markers and crayons (though I wasn't good at drawing ever) were all left behind. Every year when I visited home, I'd decide to sort things out. Throw out or give away many. But some toys, I held onto for a long time. Until I met a family with four kids. I decided it would be reasonable to give away my toys here because there are two boys and two girls in the family. Well obviously most of my toys are meant for girls. I was sick of the toys taking up space in our apartment and so I thought it's best for them to be played with rather than just tucked away safely here. I bet they missed being played with. I first checked to see what toys were actually give-able.
In the end, I decided to give away toy duck, a baby doll, a play house and a set of Barbie sized furniture. When we went over, the kids' mom told us that they seem to like to break toys a lot. This worried me a little but then I thought, far better than being kept on my cupboard and being thrown one day without ever played with again. The kids were first unsure of how the toys were to be assembled. So I sat down with them and put everything together. Their eyes widened as they saw what the toys are supposed to look like. And how were they supposed to know, I hadn't given them any boxes or anything with the picture.


The youngest daughter had already adopted the baby doll and when batteries were thrown in, she was delighted by the sounds of "mama, papa" and the crying and laughter when the doll's hands and feet were pressed.
The playhouse came with the box and instructions on it, so the little boy started to assemble the plastic rods and though I could see he wasn't managing very well at the start, I left him to it. And eventually, he had set it all up!
Their mom called us a few days later saying the kids love all the toys and since they have summer vacations, they've got now something to do even being cooped up indoors all day. When we visited next, I was pleased to see everything was still intact and the kids were having so much fun. And it feels awesome to know that something useless to me is a source of joy to someone else. ^-^