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Letting Go
The day before we left for Christmas Break, we decided to take some sweets to our neighbors upstairs. There lives a girl a few years older than Avey. She, having no siblings of her own, has been very kind to Avey whenever they’ve interacted. Just a few minutes after we’d returned from their place, the mother knocked at our door and asked if Avey would like her daughter’s old play kitchen she no longer uses. Avey has a small, plastic, pathetic excuse for a play kitchen that we had acquired in front of (I’m ashamed to say) the dumpster at an apartment a few years ago. The neighbor’s kitchen is a much larger, more colorful, probably more sanitary work of art; just the right size for Avey, complete with a refrigerator, faucet, hanging racks for pot holders, and even a play cordless phone. Needless to say, Avey jumped at the opportunity to upgrade. Or so we thought…
After Avey had transferred all of her toy food and plastic dinnerware to the new kitchen, we began to talk of parting with her old kitchen. Right about then we could hear the Four Horsemen galloping closer, and the moon must have turned to blood, because it was undoubtedly the end of the world.
Apparently we had misjudged the situation. Avey had not considered replacing her old, eyesore-of-a-toy-kitchen that is even missing several pieces. She simply thought she would take part in the most pleasant of American pastimes: amassing extraneous stuff.
We, still shooting for those Parents-of-the-Century trophies, tried to conjure up a plan. How could we win Avey’s acquiescence to ridding ourselves of the elbowroom vampire? We tried bribes with new toys, reason and logic, and even tried playing on her sympathies by explaining that it could be recycled and made into new toys for other boys and girls who have none. We were striking out left and right. We even considered for a moment hiding it until she forgot before we could disburden ourselves thereof. However, as Kira learned after giving away a doodle pad without Avey’s express written consent and then experiencing her wrath, Avey forgets nothing (except occasionally to use the potty before it is too late).
We finally relented, and offered to store it at my grandmother’s until I graduate and get a house where we can have enough room for every item she will ever own, have given to her, create, build, find laying in a ditch, or dig out of the mud.
We’re taking extra caution to take out the trash only when she’s sleeping lest she find some sentimental value in the eggshells from breakfast.