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I cleaned out the toy bin awhile ago and got rid of some old broken toys and things the kids never played with anymore, anticipating the arrival of new toys for their birthdays. The flaw in my plan? I threw them into the garbage can under the sink, expecting my husband would take the trash out before my children got up.

Today, I wouldn't make such a mistake. But I was a novice toy thrower-outer, and I made a rookie mistake that proved to be costly. Our then 4-year-old Matthew woke up earlier than usual that morning, and for some unknown reason, he immediately walked right to the cupboard, opened the door and peered into the garbage can. Is there such a thing as broken-toy radar? I have no words for the scene that ensued. It lasted all morning. When I left the house in late morning, Daddy distracted him and things seemed to calm down for awhile. Then Matthew saw the garbage truck on a nearby street, and the crying began again.

I'm not talking expensive toys, or neat toys with a little break, but rather a tiny beach ball that no longer holds air, a part of a broken toy from a "Happy Meal" that some other child LEFT at McDonald's, and we found and took home and other assorted broken toy parts.

Since that day, my friends with older children told me, "Oh, don't ever do that—use a black garbage bag, seal the toys up and take them out of the house right away." Why don't they tell you this in parenting school?

Several weeks later Matt was still asking about that purple McDonald's toy. And he cried again when the garbage truck came—unbelievable to this befuddled mom. Now, he still asks if I threw any toys away on garbage day, then checks for himself.

Even though I am weary of his attitude, I wonder if I act like a preschooler sometimes, clinging to stuff from the past? I hold on to things that were never that good in the first place, or that lost their usefulness long ago. I hang on to habits that get me nowhere. The desire for rigid structure in my schedule is "broken" now that children occupy my days with their own schedules. Yet I keep trying to blow air back into that leaky beach ball because it once worked really well, or so I tell myself. Or that child-rearing style that my best friend uses works well for her, so I'll cling to it rather than admit that it doesn't work for me at all. And truth be told, it doesn't always work for her either. I cry out that "It's my favorite stuff," even though I really don't like it. And I imagine God saying, "Susan, I've got some great stuff in store for you, but first you've got to unclutter your life and dump the trash."

Susan Senechal is a former English teacher and mother of two—Matthew, age 8, and Brianna, age 6. She lives near Houston, Texas, where she occasionally writes and speaks for women's ministry events in her local congregation. She attended MOPSwhen her kids were preschoolers.

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