Clutter, Be Gone! {Tobin's Dragon}

"We have too much stuff in this living room!" I exclaimed to my kids this morning.

As a matter of fact, we have too much stuff in nearly every room of our house (the possible exceptions being Benjamin's little room, which I keep fairly neat and organized, and the cellar, which has lots of stuff, virtually all of which is useful and life-giving).  

It's no surprise, I'm sure, that a family of eight individuals who all have various items that we particularly treasure would end up with TOO MUCH STUFF.  It may not be surprising, but it is bothersome, and today seemed a good day to tackle the clutter that had crept into the living room.

We started our official school day while we began the task.  While we listened to our memory verses and sang along, I helped the kids disassemble the many LEGO creations they had made during the previous week or 10 days; and then I shifted to reading aloud to them while they continued the job.  We read from the Bible, wrote in our gratitude journal, each took a turn to pray, and then read quite a bit from a book of Greek myths while they continued to take apart, sort, and put the LEGO pieces away in neat compartments.  Just dealing with the LEGO situation did a lot to help the room be less messy.

But there was more we could do, and my eye landed on this wooden dragon of Tobin's.  I forget which occasion we gave it to him for--a birthday or Christmas, I'm sure--but whenever it was, it most likely was put together by Jeff (oh, doesn't he just LOVE it when I give the kids gifts like these, that have a million, give or take a thousand, pieces?!).  ;-)  But then Tobin had the fun of painting it and playing with it, and it was good.

It had been a long time since he had really played with it, however, so I asked him if he would consider having some pictures with this dragon and then letting it go.  I figured I had a pretty good chance of succeeding in getting him to say goodbye to this, since he doesn't have as many packrat tendencies as some of the people in this household.  ;-)  And sure enough, after we took these pictures, he was ready to open the door of the woodstove and put this in there, ready to be used as kindling.

You're a good man, Tobin Fisher.  :)

Acknowledging when the usefulness of a thing is past, and then letting it go, requires a certain level of maturity and wisdom.  I'm proud of Tobin for the way he's developing this skill.

And I'm grateful to have one less item sitting around in my living room!  :)

Clutter, be gone!  :)