October 3, 2005 - Monday
We participated in a town-wide yard sale this past Saturday and sold several of the boys' old and now un-used toys. These lightsabers were the effective prizes for the boys parting with things they once loved and still considered their own. Naturally, there was a fair about of resistence to giving up toys and both Harry and Jeremy ultimately held out on a few on them. "I still love this," they'd say. "You haven't played with that in years," we'd say and so forth. We tried to convince them that the more toys they sold the more money they'd have for the new lightsabers, but until it actually happened and they saw how much money they were getting, it never really registered. The boys went to their swimming lesson this morning and missed a lot of the early action, but that only meant that when they arrived I was able to hand each of them $11.25, counting out the stck of one dollar bills into their little hands. That's a lot of money all at once for them compared to the $1-2 dollars they usually gain each time from the bottle and can recycling. And I'm told that after I left with Jeremy for his cello lesson, Harry, having seen the possibilities, really got into the selling, apparently demoing toys for would-be buyers. (Connor's mother told me the same thing happened to Connor and his brother at their yard sale this summer.)

I admit that I'm not necessarily a big fan of violence-oriented toys like these lightsabers, but I am pragmatic about them. The boys are into the Star Wars movies and had started doing the same thing with sticks. Indeed, "boys and sticks" is probably inevitable. At least these plastic, telescoping lightsabers are safer than that. Plus, look at them, they have helmets on, they're not swinging at all hard (yet anyway), and they're being responsible. I'm taking that as validation for a little trust shown their way.

Harry is older, faster, and more agile and usually wins these little play encounters. Fortunately, Jeremy seems to like to fall and pretend to "die." Admittedly, that could just be the smaller kid making the best of it and not getting mad about the reality of things.


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