Toys

The W Sisters and The Story of Their Inheriting Fragments of My Remaining Childhood Toy Collection

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I find it fascinating what stuff my parents decided to keep from my childhood. When I got too old to play with some toys I boxed them up in old VCR box or two and put them in a closet. It felt like ages later but in retrospect was less than 10 years before some of those toys made it out of their box when younger cousins would come over to play.

Not all of my childhood toys were created equal however. My remaining G.I. Joe’s and Star Wars action figures along with some miscellaneous other action figures and matchbox cars were what the family would get to play with when they would come and visit. Other stuff such as most of my transformers and I believe the Lego state safely tucked away. Of the toys is that made an appearance when the cousins came over only the matchbox cars survived. I don’t know where any of the Star Wars figures went. The G.I. Joe’s physically are still around however I believe I’ve written about in the past that the rubber band that held them together deteriorated on most of them so by the time I opened the box with them in it they were in pieces. I did have some other action figures that survived. Most notably my Ironman, Hannibal Smith’s and Murdoch from the A-Team.

It must have been well over a year ago when I asked my mom to bring the action figures over to my house if she still had them. I wanted to introduce the girls to some of the superheroes that I thought I had. What my mom brought wasn’t a whole lot since overtime things broke or got lost. I was still surprised how much stuff there was. The box that she brought over was mainly matchbox cars, G.I. Joe’s and a few of the other action figures I mentioned. There was one or two small transformers and a few transformer accessories. At the time I thought that was all that survived.

Of the toys that I got some of the matchbox cars I could not give to the girls because the wheels were very loose and I was concerned A might put them in her mouth after breaking them off. After I vetted what toys were safe for the girls I gave them some matchbox cars and action figures to play with. MC’s parents bought a few other new matchbox cars had to the limited collection I had released for use. Even to this day I get in all the install job when I see the girls playing with a matchbox car that I recognize and remember playing with when I was a kid.

More recently I wrote about asking for Legos that I knew my mom had. After I began asking for that it opened the floodgates for my mom to want to purge what stuff she had left from my childhood out of her apartment. Having an apartment of my own with two kids made it high time I probably took this stuff anyway. I was surprised at how many transformers and additional matchbox cars I had in the second box I received in August. Several of the matchbox toys I can’t give to the girls because the paint is flaking off them. Most notably are two die cast metal space shuttles and one 747 where one of the space shuttles would sit on. That jet for some reason I painted completely white and the paint was flaking as well. I did find several transformers. I even had the cab to optimist prime. I don’t know where the semi part of him went however I was happy to have anything at all. I decided that there was no way I was giving the girls Transformers from the 80’s to play with. First of all they would break them in a minute. Second of all there’s too much nostalgia in it for me to chance them destroying them. Nancy found a shelf in our bookcase where I have them on display now. Jetfire still remain separate however that’s a different post in and of itself.

Next up for my mom to bring over is my baseball card collection. When she brought up that she was doing that I asked where my comics were. She insisted that I didn’t have any. After I insisted she look for them further she found my boxes and will bring them all over together. The baseball card collection is not that substantial. I had significantly more of them when I was much younger. I remember my mom would bring home tons of them were confiscated or found from her classes. That must’ve been late 70s and early 80s. What I do have are a few complete annual series from the late 80s. As for my comic books I will wait to go through them before writing more about them. I have an idea about some of what I have however I don’t recall how extensive the collection that I kept was. I think I kept everything that I don’t however I will need to confirm that once I get them.

It’s cool getting all these flashbacks from my childhood. As an adult I purged a lot of the things that I had taken with me when I moved out or previously gone from my parents. For example I remember getting rid of my relatively extensive collection of Dungeons & Dragons books in the mid to late 2000’s. I could’ve gone some money for them on eBay but the amount of effort to sell all of them would’ve been too much for me at the time. Each piece individually wasn’t worth that much however the entire collection might’ve been worth selling. I also have purged much of my book collection from my childhood. There are a few that I kept however not much. That reminds me I need to find where I put my Narnia Chronicles box set. I know I loaned them to my niece Morgan with the specific instructions that I would like them back when I have kids. My sister did give them back to me recently but I don’t remember what I did with them. T’s not quite ready for those stories however she might be pretty soon.

The Real Reason I had Kids Was to Play Legos as an Adult

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I knew that my parents had a bunch of old toys of mine. In general I was vague on the details of what I had. There were matchbox cars and G.I. Joe’s. There were also possibly some Star Wars figures and other action figures. Beyond that I really wasn’t clear on what exactly survived childhood to get put in storage. Out of all those toys however I knew that my parents had kept a large cache of Legos. The reason I knew they still existed was at some point (I think when Zachary was old enough to play with them) my dad unsealed the box that I sealed up when I must’ve been 14 or 15 years old. I remember that because I sealed the box with a completely built Lego SDF-1 from Robotech. My dad mentioned that when he opened the box there was something built inside. He also mentioned they immediately took it apart before starting to play with the Legos. I was sad that he didn’t at least take a picture of it since I was curious how the model survived over the years. If it was intact I would’ve been really cool to have kept it since how often do you get to keep something you built when you were a kid and have it show up decades later?

The story about my SDF-1 being dismantled reminded me I had Lego and as of around 2010 it still existed. Ever since I knew we were going to have kids I was excited to have the opportunity to play with Legos again. We have these mega blocks that the girls played with ever since Teagan was small. We held off on the Duplo’s. I am now glad we made that decision since we can jump right into Legos. Teagan is the right age for it. We are also trying to train Amelia not to put anything in her mouth. Other than her finger I think she’s been pretty good about that.

When the topic came up a few weeks ago I asked my mom if she could get out the box of Lego and bring it over to our apartment when she got the chance. I was pleasantly surprised about a week ago when after my mom came back from the beach with Amelia that I had a box waiting for me on my desk.

We could not start playing with them right away however since they’ve been in storage for quite some time. It was visibly apparent they needed cleaning. I hand cleaned a few of the large pieces and went through the rest of them to see what we could give the girls and what we would need to clean further. Last week as I was cleaning them the girls were both fascinated in them. I ended up having to move my sorting session from the kitchen to the playroom floor so the girls could immediately start playing with what little amounts of Lego I declared clean and ready for use. At first session the girls were engaged for about a complete our before we had to stop and clean up for bedtime. Finding torsos and legs for all the Lego people was a priority for both girls. I was surprised how many we were able to find.

Over the first weekend we had the Legos MC brought out a bag we bought when Teagan was a baby. This bag was special because you could spread the bag out on the floor and play with stuff on it. When you were done and you wanted to clean up all you do is pull on the cord of the bag and everything stores away very easily. The bag is very big so both girls could easily play on the work surface that it creates when opened up. It was a genius idea to use for our Legos. I have a feeling may have been in MC’s mind the whole time when she bought that thing in 2012.

MC bought a few boxes of 300 piece Lego kits to give as gifts for birthday parties. It is a starter kit with lots of basic size blocks. We were having so much fun we decided to use one kits of blocks for us to add to our collection. MC gave them to the girls Sunday. Before we did I had the realization that as much is we have a lot of Lego we have a lot of oddly shaped pieces. That is because what’s left is an amalgamation of several playsets that I had when I was a child. There’s left over pieces of the moon lander playset. There were also pieces of a gas station, fire station, and police station. Is also a boat from something but I can’t remember that very well other than the boat itself.

I think both mornings this weekend the girls played for almost an hour with the Legos and again for a little while in the afternoon. Yesterday I came home and our babysitters son was there for the day and he built stuff with all the Legos a little bit of Amelia’s help. Before bedtime the girls and I continue to play with what he had built and I built them rocket with two boosters on them. We must’ve played for about 45 minutes before we had to go brush teeth.

So far I’ve seen both girls play with the lego men and the accessories that come with them. They’ve made cars, and a boat. They’ve also just been generally fascinated. Hoping that this turns into a long-term hobby they enjoy. For now I’m just enjoying that they’re happy with something that I enjoyed so much as a child. I’m also pretty pleased to be a will to play with some of it myself not have a really good excuse.

The Story of Dee Dee, and That Other Monkey We Will Never Speak of

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2014 Dee Dee MonkeyWhen Teagan was born we got lots of presents.  As with many new borns a lot of the gifts we received were in the form of plush stuffed animals to put in her crib.  Even before she was born I pondered what stuffed thing she would gravitate towards.  In our family the “loves” or items kids attach to have been stuffed animals.  I know many people have blankets and other stuff but for all the kids I remember we liked stuffed animals.  My sister had her lamb.  At least one of her kids had a lamb also, and the other two i know had animals but I can’t remember what they were.  I think mine was the dog Benjy dressed up as Sherlock Holmes.

The problem with any item that a kid attaches to is that if you lose it you have big problems.  For Morgan my dad was able to purchase extra Lamb’s once we knew that the lamb was the one she gravitated towards.  That way they had a backup in case you needed to clean one or something happened to it.

For Teagan we limited what was in her crib early on. I think there was one little lamb in the crib and a few other items.  Her crib was not like some others that I have seen were you couldn’t find the kid in all of the animals.  Once she did get exposure to more of them I was moderately surprised that she selected a brown monkey.  There was a pink monkey that I swore she would have picked, but she knew what she wanted and picked the larger two tone brown monkey.

After a few short weeks we knew this was this monkey was her lovey.  That meant we needed to act fast and get a backup one.  MC said the monkey was a gift from my mom.  I called my mom and she told us she got it at Pottery Barn Kids.  MC went online and ordered 2 of what she thought was the same monkey.  When we got it we realized it wasn’t the same.  it was smaller and a slightly different style monkey.  We thought about it for a bit and decided to switch out the totally different monkey for the new one that we had two of.  To my pleasant surprise Teagan didn’t really notice that the new monkey was totally different size and fluffiness to the original one and attached right to it.  After a few days our concerns that we would be found out were over and she was happy with her new lovey.

All was right with the world in the stuffed animal department until a few weeks go by.  I don’t remember exactly how long but I was discussing what we did with my mom.  She said why don’t I just go and see if they have the original doll at the store.  We were happy Teagan had attached to the other monkey by now but I said sure it can’t hurt.  She called us up one day at the store after confirming they had the type we wanted and asked if we really wanted it.  It was on sale.  I said sure, and MC and I agreed we should get 2 just in case.  Just in case of what you might as?  The answer is who the heck knows.  If one backup doll is good, 2 should be better or so that was our logic.

Now we had a total of 5 monkeys.  The dilemma was that Teagan is now attached to the smaller monkey we switched for the original.  We figured we were able to pull off the switch once, we should try it again.  The worst that could happen was she didn’t attach and she would get mad at us.  If that happened we would just switch back to the other monkey.  The time came to make the switch and as far as i can recall she looked it over for a minute but then totally accepted the original monkey as her lovey.

Teagan has been attached to that monkey ever since.  Since we have three of the monkeys she uses we keep two of them in my closet and swap them out when we need to clean them.  One or two time she has sniffed it a bit and she would look at us skeptically but she hasn’t rejected it yet.

Seeing it first hand how attached she is to the monkey she has grown to call Dee Dee is pretty cute and funny.  When she is getting a time out or just having a melt down she will call out “dee dee” constantly and will most of the time be soothed when she gets him/her.  She sleeps with dee dee at every nap time and bed time.  We instituted a rule that she can only play with dee dee in her room.  MC wasn’t a fan of the idea but went along with my suggestion to do so.  I didn’t want her to be too attached to her everywhere.  She will now try to sneak dee dee out of her room during the day.  Usually when we catch her and call her out for it she will just run back to her room and deposit him somewhere.  Recently that may be in her crib, the rocking chair or even a little play crib we have that she brought into her room for dee dee.

At bedtime after Amelia was born we have been reading books outside of her room so we allow dee dee out right before bed.  She is so cute when she cuddles up to it when she gets it.

The other monkeys are not gone however.  The smaller ones were originally kept around for when we traveled.  Generally there is one in the play room now and again that she plays with.  She doesn’t know the history of it and will likely find out eventually.  I am making an assumption that by the time she is old enough to read this blog or even find it she will be able to accept that there were 3 dee dee’s.  In my (and MC’s) defense we did it for Teagan’s and our own sanity in the event we had a catastrophic stuffed animal loss.  I stick by my decisions regardless of the consequences!  Teagan I love you and please don’t play mind games with me when I am old and my memory is going as a form of payback!