he sees dead people too

Our boy appreciates about 98% of the toys he has, but he does have his big three that he goes back to again and again (blocks, marble run, train track). He also has a spooky mental inventory of every toy he's ever had.

I'm not one to enjoy clutter (you wouldn't know that by looking at our house). So as soon as I see that a toy's been neglected for a good amount of time, or it's one that he's grown out of, I take it out of the rotation and store it away. It never fails that as soon as I do that, within the next couple days, he asks me about said toy.

Just the other day he asked me about his wooden peg and mallet thing. I had JUST put it away in a box with some other toys (very secretly, I might add -- or so I THOUGHT). I gave him some vague reply like, "I don't know honey, I haven't seen it" (which isn't completely a lie). But he wouldn't let it go. He kept asking about it as if he knew exactly where it was and he was just testing me. Finally the guilt was just eating away at my insides and I went upstairs where I "found" it.

Then, the other day, I was clearing some shows off the TIVO. He hasn't been too interested in Blue's Clues lately so I thought it was safe to delete a few of those. So guess what he says to me yesterday. "Mama, I want to watch the Blue's Clues with Felix trying to make a basket." D'OH! I'm sorry buddy but that Blue's Clues is no longer with us.

Tonight, I contemplated recycling the kitty-cat house we made out of the giant cardboard box his new car seat came in. But then I stopped myself. I threw it in the front closet for a test. We'll see how long it's in there before he asks me about it. What do you suppose the statute of limitations on kitty-cat boxes is?