Don't Go Breaking My Heart

In the morning after breakfast, Sam likes to take inventory of his toys. The process involves removing every mother loving item from each of his three toy boxes to ensure that during the night, elves didn't break in and make off with his favorite wooden spoon. Usually he is satisfied with his survey and plays happily for a while, and occasionally he'll even make a game of putting some of the toys away. (Note that I said some and not all.)

Two weeks ago, I decided to collect up a few toys that would be age appropriate for the new baby from Sam's decidedly large collection. All the moving and relative quickness of me becoming pregnant again means that we never really weeded through his toys. Several of the objects I pilfered for the new girl were components of the gymni thing that Sam loved so as a babe. The next morning he seemed to notice that something was awry with his toy collection, but I distracted him with some new toys bought on the cheap at Ikea.

After I washed everything, I re-assembled the gymni and put it out of sight in our room. This afternoon we all trudged upstairs for a little play time while mom and dad got changed so that we could leave the house in something other than pajamas. As soon as I put him down, Sam spied the gymni and started to pull it out from the corner.

Almost instantly, tears sprung to my eyes and I begged SOB to run downstairs and get the camera. Why? Here is my baby boy in March of 2006 'playing' in his gymni:


And here is the same boy and the same toy today:

I have run off to the store now. Sorry, but we're all out of kleenex, and every time I look at this picture I need another dozen or so.