It’s always an interesting experiment to refurnish your home when you have children in the house. We are the proud parents of a three year old girl and a one year old boy. And it’s only been a couple of years since we established ourselves in our very own home. So every now and then we need to acquire some new furniture, and we ususally move some things about in order to make room for the new stuff.

And whenever we move some of their toys around it never fails: The toys, some of which they haven’t touched in months, suddenly appear as brand new to them. It’s Christmas morning all over, they pull out everything from their new location and onto the floor. This can last for days, maybe even a week.

This time we moved some of their books from a box on the floor and into a bookshelf. They had perfectly easy access to the books before as well, but the books never left that box unless we actually fetched them. Now, however, the books are pulled out of the shelf and spread all over the floor virtually seconds after the kids enter the living room. They look at every single picture and show us every last book as if it was discovered for the first time, and they spend hours with them.

This will probably last until, I don’t know, tomorrow or the day after. By then they will have adjusted to the new situation, and the books can once again return to their quiet life, now relocated in our brand new Ikea bookshelf. Funny thing, that.

It makes you think, though. Do they really need all the new stuff they’re given every birthday and every Christmas from me and my wife, from their grandparents, their aunts and uncles and God knows who? Maybe we should just draw the attention to the toys they’ve actually got to make them last a little longer? There’s certainly plenty of toys in our attic they’ve hardly ever looked at. And that’s too bad, isn’t it?