I wrote this one 3.5 years ago. I made a couple edits for clarity, but otherwise it's untouched. Perhaps my favorite part of this piece is the title. That is some good stuff I thought of all those years ago.
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Last night I picked the nighttime book to read to Beckett, who is six and a half now. Night time reading is not consistent these days. Sometimes he wants to read independently, and I am okay with that. I still feel really strongly, though, that being read aloud to is incredibly important. I've been reading a book to him titled The Secret of Platform 13 by Eva Ibbotson, and I've been loving it. Beckett thinks it is mostly great, but there is a major plot point of mistaken identity that gets him really worked up. He hasn't been wanting to read this lately, so last night I picked a different book instead. This one was called Covered Wagons, Bumpy Trails by Verla Kay, illustrated by S.D. Schindler. In a nutshell, the book is about some of the first covered wagon trains to cross from the midwest to California in covered wagons.
Covered Wagons seemed like a good choice as it looked unlikely to cause undue agitation. Unfortunately, that was not the case. It is a lovely book: the verse is well-written, the illustrations are good, the background information given at the front of the book is informative and brief. The road the settlers take, however, is perilous and difficult. There were signs early on that this would be difficult to get through for my sensitive kid. Things were manageable until...until those poor settlers had to discard a bunch of their possessions while pushing their covered wagons up the Rocky Mountains.
Beckett felt the loss of things so acutely that he instantly sprung tears and could hardly breathe. He thought of what it would mean to lose his Legos. I thought about distracting him from this thought to get away from the pain, but I couldn't. It felt important to stay with this and talk it through. Here are some of my initial thoughts: how can he not notice that I get rid of things around here all the time? We live in a one bedroom apartment, filled with four humans and their stuff. I am the gatekeeper, the editor, and the judge. I am sentimental about things by nature myself, but I've gotten to a point where I can manage this without letting things get stuck. Our home is not minimalistic by any stretch of the imagination, but we have managed to get it to a point that it actually feels more open and less overwhelmed than some other, larger homes I've been to. (That is not a criticism of other people's choices; I don't want to live with so much stuff, but I don't judge anyone else for doing so. If it's causing them problems that they are not dealing with, then that's a harder one to hold judgment on).
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That's where I ended it 3.5 years ago. Today Beckett and Sammy were reading over my shoulder and Beckett exclaimed that "of course" he didn't know I got rid of things all the time - he was only 6.5. At which point Sammy exclaimed, "You get rid of things all the time? Really?" So, I guess that's not quite something they've noticed.
It's harder. They're bigger. They're more attached to things. But periodically we go through their things together. Sometimes it's a big deal (sit here for 1 hour while we touch every toy on the shelves) and sometimes it's more casual (let's see how which pants really fit you and you actually wear). But we still manage to fit ourselves in this little apartment. Lately I've read a few Amish romance novels, and there's nothing like a glimpse into a Plain household to put things in perspective.
Let go of the pretty detritus. At the very least, you will get to use that turn of phrase.
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