One last time.

In an attempt to get rid of some junk last week, I was going through the garage and came across two of Peter's old Tonka dump trucks.

Oh, the memories I have of him playing with those things - the piles of dirt and sand being loaded and unloaded from the dumper, the truck noises he used to make with his mouth, the way he would get down on hands and knees to operate them.  He loved those trucks.

But they were getting old.  It had been almost two years since he had played with them and the last few times he had used them as a ride-on toy to go down the hills around our house. He was already seven when he was using them like this and he was playing this game with the rough next door neighbor boys and the sides of the metal trucks were bent down from the weight of big boys and big fun.

So the trucks sat in our garage gathering dust like most things out there until last week.  I was tired of looking at the broken toys and I was sure that they would sit there for another year so I decided to get rid of them.

Peter and Colton were playing outside when I took them from the garage to the big blue dumpster my parents had at their house for the week.

Peter immediately saw me and yelled, "Mom! Where are you going with my trucks?"

I was met with protests when I told him they were getting tossed. I knew I would be.  Peter is very much like his daddy.  Once something has been his, he finds it very hard to part with it.  And Peter is so tenderhearted I knew that tears were not far behind the protests.

I held my ground and it helped that Colton was with us.  Tears welled up in Peter's eyes but he didn't want to cry in front of his friend.  And Colton confirmed what I was saying about how long it had been since they had played with them and how the sides were bent in and how really, dump trucks were for little kids.

Peter decided to "play" with them one last time.  After about 30 seconds he was bored so I started towards the dumpster once again.

"Hey, Mom?  How about if you take a picture of them for me? That way I can always remember them."

I took the picture and will add this day to my memories of my sweet tenderhearted baby playing with his dump trucks one last time.