Return of an Old Friend

Christmas 1977: Karen and Robbie, blearily wandering into the living room way too early for their parents' comfort, find waiting for them amazing, nearly life-sized stuffed animals, left by Santa next to the tree. Karen's is Doggie and Rob's is Teddy, and they would be loved, loved, and loved some more, through good times and calamities, right on into adulthood.

Karen graduates from college and gets married, and though she doesn't really know what to do with her old, stuffed dog, she can't let go. So, poor Doggie gets stuffed to the back of the linen closet, patiently waiting for the day when Karen rediscovers her...

Which turned out to be yesterday. I was cleaning out the linen closet, and decided that, even if the kids didn't want to play with Mama's old, beaten up, stuffed dog, that at least she could be out in the play room instead of jammed up at the back of a closet.

They LOVE her! Although, Doggie, it turns out, has gone through some gender confusion - when she belonged to me, she was a girl but now she's definitely become a boy, a fact which 4 year-old Owen assures me is 'no big deal.'

Yesterday, No Impact Man wrote an incredible column about thrift-shop finds and the warmth and heart they contain; sooooo much better than newly-bought stuff. When I see my guys, especially Owen who hasn't put Doggie down for the last 36 hours, loving a dear friend from my own childhood, I get goosebumps.

From Fall Blog

Thrift Shops and Greek Mythology

Around the corner from us - with better sidewalks, we could walk there - is a fabulous thrift shop. It's run by a church, and at first I had some trepidation with checking it out because I worried there might be proselytizing, when all we really want is a place to donate things we no longer need, and find useful, often fun, afforable things we do. (Thankfully, they recognize that moral people may be of other faiths.)

Also, I have a thing about stuff, so thrifting has become a hobby of mine recently.

Here are a few of my favorite things about this shop:

They have a food pantry, and cheerfully accept whatever we can donate - right now, mostly garden produce but as we get into winter, any baked goods we make will be doubled for the pantry. Math and helping the less fortunate, all in one!

We've found some amazing buys there - a complete Discovery Toy marble track for $1, a Magic 8 Ball for 25 cents, complete play-dough play sets, miscellaneous toys, clothing, shoes...

But best of all are the books - 3 for a quarter! I've found dozens of children's books, and a few 'great idea' books for homeschoolers, when I happened to arrive soon after a newly retired teacher dropped off decades' worth of books for elementary school-aged children.

I'm not sure why, but this shop has an ever-changing, interesting collection of Greek mythology for children. When we found a not-too-scarily illustrated Perseus and Medusa, Owen put on his knight stuff and went off to "fight the Gorgons." The first one we found on the Trojan Horse made little sense to me (they tried to pack too much in, it was badly written and insensible), but both Luke and Owen loved it. This week, though, I found the piece de resistance: The Adventures of Ulysses, otherwise known as the Odyssey, in simple words and many pictures - we're reading it about 10 times a day, and talking about it all the time. Tonight at dinner, Luke said, "someday I'm going to find out the truth about the Greek gods and goddesses, I'm going to climb up Mount Olympus to the tippy top!"

Maybe all thrift shops are like this, I don't know; we sure feel fortunate to have this one, and so close by.

Toy Envy

It started a few weeks ago, at a friend's house where the kids are really into Pokemon keychains, of which Luke had exactly none. He hasn't loved Pokemon anything in several months, but for that afternoon, you would've thought he lost his dog, he was so sad about not having a handful of these keychains.

Then, at a birthday party yesterday, the newly-8-year-old boy got so many cool Star Wars presents that Luke actually turned green during present-opening. It doesn't matter that, at home, we have 3 lightsabers of our own, plus at least one floating around on loan from friends, or that we have so many Star Wars action figures, starships, books, playsets and Gameboy chips that we're swimming in them. Confronted with all this new, cool stuff, none of what we have at home really mattered.

And so, Ben and I look at each other and ask, what can we do about this extreme case of toy envy? I say extreme because for the last few weeks, Luke's been dedicated to the accumulation of more stuff. We hear things like, "I don't know what I'll do if I can't have Obi-Wan boots just like Sam's!" We are subject to tirades of whining, crying, begging to go to Target and buy... everything in the toy department.

We are considering removing quite a bit of the Star Wars stuff we've got - not permanently! we're not that mean - from Luke's room to help him appreciate what he already has.

Also, we'd like to find a way for Luke to see, up close with his own eyes, what true deprivation is by volunteering to help a poor family in some way (scant details as yet, but when we figure out how to do this, I'll be sure to document it in this space.)

Suggestions are appreciated...

And in the meantime, we'll re-watch The Story of Stuff (see the link, right over there ->) to help remind us that consumerism ain't everything.