The Land of Lost Toys

Today's NaBloPoMo prompt: What gift do you regret breaking?

Growing up surrounded by moving boxes, our toys were constantly breaking through no fault of our own. I remember lots of tears as I unwrapped treasures from boxes. When all the paper came out, broken pieces rattled at the bottom of the box often caught in the flaps of taped box ends.

I collected unicorns when I was younger. I had everything from a unicorn lamp to delicate glass blown figurines. The only item from my collection I still own... a unicorn stuffed animal. It's perched on my daughter's bed, happy to have made it through countless moves while all her friends met untimely ends.

One of my daughters precious unicorns

A more recent tragedy of the dreaded moving boxes... my husband's telescope. He wanted one for a long time, and it sat proudly in his office. Did he gaze at the stars nightly? No, but he was excited to show the girls when they got old enough. Unfortunately it was broken during a move. Worse than that, we didn't realize it for awhile, so it was too late to claim it and replace it. We still haven't. It's on a long list titled, "One of These Days."

Moving created the land of the lost toys for me as a kid, and now for my family. But we try to love the heck out of things when we have them. Now that my daughter has started her own unicorn collection, I have hot glue ready to make sure it stays around for years of memories.

Do you remember a favorite lost toy?

*****

For the moms out there, I have to share this story because I know you'll appreciate it. As soon as I wrote the piece above about my one surviving unicorn, I went upstairs to take a picture of it for the blog. One hour later I had a laundry basket full of dirty clothes, leftover cups, a Target bag filled with trash, and three broken toys. But no unicorn picture.

I swear I just saw the thing sitting on my daughter's bed. Either I haven't cleaned her room in way too long (sadly, this could be the case), or she's rearranged and Lord only knows where it is.

Still, this is why I don't get done as much as I would like on any given day. Distractions!