Boys and Their Toys

Recently Gabe and I found ourselves together with nothing else to do but have some fun. I knew he had been itching to see Toy Story 3 but just we couldn't seem to get him there. I wanted to see it too. We went...together. It was great fun. Gabe has the other Toy Story movies on video and had a Toy Story marathon in preparation for the new movie. They are definite favorites with him. He also dug out his Toy Story toys that he still has and lined them up on the floor with him for the marathon. Which brings me to the purpose of this blog, to talk about boys and toys.

I have some great memories of my boys and their toys. Zach didn't play with any one toy very long... until he discovered balls! As an infant he was easily bored with toys but as a toddler when he discovered balls he had a whole new world. He loved to throw them. They were such fun. We began a collection of different types of balls. Mostly nerf ones if we could...his aim was scary.

We had footballs, volley balls, basketballs, tennis balls, kickballs, baseballs, practice golf balls, whiffle balls. We had every ball we could think of. And that little guy could name them all. He had a blast just picking them up saying what they were and, of course, throwing them. I cooked many suppers catching balls with one hand and stirring something on the stove with the other. If I didn't catch the ball, it would end up in the pan with dinner. Eventullay, Zach added more toys to his list of favorites. He became obsessed with cars... race cars. He especially loved their wheels. I think it was because they were round, like most balls. He loved to line them up and then zoom them across the kitchen floor to see which was the fastest. He also became interested in tractors and after reading the book, Are You My Mother?, he wanted a "snortskie"(his word for bulldozer, read the book you'll understand). My parents got him one and he still has it. He loved playing with it in his sand box. Finally, he got old enough for Legos. He loved putting them together according to the directions and then taking them apart and building his own creations.

When Ethan came along he was very content to sit and play with toys on the floor. He loved to manipulate them and see what they could do. He also loved stuffed animals and became very good at imaginative play, giving them voices and personalities. His first favorite was a little koala bear that he named Moody. He could barely talk, but he named it and if you asked where Moody was, he would tell you "Moody thleepin'. " Later we got a Bugs Bunny for him and what a friend he was to Ethan. Poor Bugsy, as he became known, was very loved. I figured he was in danger of becoming "real." (Read The Velveteen Rabbit) Eventually, Ethan discovered toys with wheels. Only he loved trucks. Big trucks. That was all he asked for one year for Christmas. Of course, we got it for him and yes, he still has it. It was a Big Bruser truck, red, with lights and sounds when backing up and an engine that idled. He loved that truck and spent many hours lying on the floor playing with it.

Gabe's favorite toys were very different from Zach and Ethan's. Like Zach, he liked little cars and enjoyed lining them up and crashing tthem or sending them flying across the kitchen floor. And like Ethan, he had a couple of favorite stuffed animals. A little dalmation puppy he named Pongo was an especial favorite. He loved the One Hundred and One Dalmation movies. But when we went to Gettysburg on vacation when he was three years old, Gabe discovered Army Guys. Who would have thought that a little $3.oo bag of Conferate and Union plastic soldiers would be so much fun to the little guy? Those little soldiers were never out of his hands. They even went to church with him in his pockets. "Just a couple, please Mom?" As he grew his collection grew too. We had red firemen, green Vietnam soldiers, little tiny kahki World War II soldiers and even soldiers and Indians from the Alamo battle along with the Alamo itself. I would find them everywhere, even in my Christmas tree when I took it down after Christmas. He became very upset when he left them on the steps and the dog would chew their heads off. Gabe also became obsessed with Legos and still likes to buy them and put them together. But he leaves them together.

As I watched Toy Story 3, I was reminded of all my boys and how they struggled to set aside their favorite toys. We still have boxes of them in the basement and Gabe, even at almost sixteen still has many within reach in his room. In the movie, Andy doesn't pack up his stuff until his Mom absolutely insists that he must, verymcuh like my two older boys before they left for college. How I related to his Mom's flashbacks of him playing with his toys. In my mind I still see them having the time of their lives, making up scenarios and personalities and voices for their toys as they played. How empty and bare their rooms looked after they did pack and left for college, just like Andy's. In Andy I saw their struggle to leave their childhood behind. Packing those toys away was the end of that chapter and although they knew they were starting a new one, it wasn't easy. I loved it that Andy was able to find a little girl who loved her toys and played with them like he did. I saw the conflict he felt as he let go of even Woody, the one he was going to take to school with him. How hard it is for boys to grow up. Their toys are more than just objects to them, they are part of them, real, in fact. To say I shed a few tears is an understatement.

I think Gabe's perspective as we watched the movie and talked about it later is very insightful into the world of boys and their toys. During the scene in the movie where the toys are about to be incinerated, Gabe was appalled. He thought it was the end of the movie and he couldn't believe they were really going to end the movie with the toys being totally anihilated. His feelings for and connection to the toys was evident. "How could they do that?" he said. At first, I too thought this was the end, it really seemed like it, but I just couldn't imagine they would do that to little children. As we talked about it on the way to Five Guys for burgers and fries, Gabe wasn't totally happy with the way it ended. He would rather have had the toys boxed and put in the attic than to be given away to another child. Why? Because it meant that Andy would no longer have them around. How could he have let Woody go like that? Of course, we could see that Woody was the hardest for him to part with. Gabe also lamented the toys that weren't in this movie, they had already been given away. He could name them all. Do you still doubt the attachment of a boy to his toys?
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I appreciate the perspective this movie gave me for the many boxes of old toys in my basement. Yes, they take up a lot of room but they also are a part of my boys and even if they never get played with again, each time one of my boys opens a box and pulls out a toy he will be a little boy again. Those toys hold memories of simpler times and happy, carefree days of imaginative play. Who knows when they will need just such a memory to help them through a difficult time? They will have some great stories to share with their own children someday.