Domestic Psychology

one bag of broken army men please

// February 14th, 2009 // parenting, play, preschoolers

While I was making the weekly drive to bring Tommy home from LMU for the weekend, Doug stayed home to work and watch Evan. One of the many disasters I came home to find was the ruins of an epic battle involving small plastic army men and a wooden train. As I was tossing the toy soldiers into their bucket, I noticed that I was holding a soldier without legs. I looked at the scattered plastic men and realized that the floor looked like a scene out of a horror movie. There were soldiers who were limbless, headless, flat, twisted and even a few that the dog had chewed. I sifted through the plastic army men and returned a a much smaller but unwounded group of soldiers to the bucket. The rest went in the trash can. I tucked Evan in bed for the night and the soldiers left my thoughts. Temporarily. This morning Evan dumped his soldiers on the bathroom floor to play with while I was brushing my teeth. “Where all guys with no heads? No legs guy all gone.” Sigh. I felt like a terrible mother. Then, Evan bit the head off of one of the survivors of my perfect-toys-only cleansing. “All better now.” If you say so son.