I’m currently in the process of both literally and figuratively cleaning house.

Yesterday was the boys’ room.

It’s amazing how quickly my two boys, ages 6 and 4, break their toys. It is definitely a source of shame for me. My mom always made sure we took extremely good care of our things growing up. Nothing ever broke, and if it did, it sort of felt like the end of the world.

With my boys, everything seems to get destroyed. Ezra, my four year old, especially seems intent on trying to break the things he owns. And as I find broken toy after broken toy I wonder, what am I doing wrong? Why are my boys so destructive, violent?

Perhaps years down the road Ezra will be an engineer, and his desire to break things apart and see how they work will make more sense. Maybe he’ll be is demolition or perhaps even construction.

That’s what I have to tell myself to not feel deeply ashamed that my kids break all their toys.

I filled a trash bag yesterday of old and broken toys. An entire trash bag.

But the upside is that their room is now much, much more organized and they have fewer things to destroy and fewer things to make messes with. And that in and of itself brings me joy.