While the mouse is away...

...the cat cleans his room.

I have spent the past couple of hours cleaning Grayson's room. Actually, going through drawers and baskets and boxes of junk, winnowing out what he hopefully won't miss to cut down on the amazing clutter. His entire floor was covered in books, toys and... Junk. There's no other word for it. Most of what he considers "toys," I consider junk. In fact, he has two big plastic bins labeled as such, and that's what he spends most of his time playing with: little plastic animals, trading cards, plastic cars or boxes, pieces of other toys, things he has made from Sculpey or cobbled together from paper towel tubes and popsicle sticks. It's hard to tell what's treasure and what's trash. I went out on a limb and threw away a bag full of stuff that I was pretty sure was trash. And made a whole box of other stuff disappear. I'll seal it up and move it to the garage, and if he doesn't miss it in a few months, I'll take it to Goodwill.

It was with a heavy heart that I also moved Mambo's empty vivarium out of Grayson's room today, as well. At least it won't be standing there like an accusation any more, but it made me sad to take it away. I know he's never coming back. Probably he's dead. If he isn't, he will be when the cold weather arrives. But it's time to clear away the viv and make way for other things. I'll bundle everything up and put it in the garage. Maybe at a later date we'll get another bearded dragon, or convert the viv into a container for some other pet.

I also had to pull a stack of picture books off Grayson's shelves to make room for more current reading material: Manga books and thick catalogs of stats for Pokemon games and graphic novels. In the past couple of years, all the picture books have gone by the wayside. Soon I'll have to go through them and box up a bunch for donation. For now, I guess I'll just add them to those already boxed and in the garage. It makes me a little sad. Here's Click Clack Moo that he laughed and laughed over. Here's Dog's Colorful Day, that we read endlessly, and he pointed out all the colors over and over with his fat little fingers, wanting me to read them for him. Here's The Story of Ping and Good Night Gorilla. It tugs my heart. Of course I want my boy to grow up and be a Big Kid, and then a Teenager, and then a Young Man. I want to see him mature and develop. I want to see what he will become, what he will love, what he will grow into. But A part of me will always long for that little boy that sat in my lap and wanted me to read the same books over and over and over. I can still feel the phantom weight of him against him when I remember it. The lines of baby fat around his wrists and elbows, the golden curls.

Ah, I wax nostalgic. Already I feel his childhood slipping away from me. But for now I have a boy who still wobbles on his bike, still wants to sit in my lap and kiss my face, still climbs into bed with me in the wee hours of the morning to snuggle up. I am such a lucky woman, such a lucky mom.

Someday, god willing, my boy will have a little boy of his own, and I'll get all that babyhood back one more time. For now, I'd best be appreciating what I have.

And what I don't have anymore: Namely one big box of junk that will no longer get spread all over the floor of Grayson's room.