My Son's Mini-Mart Goes Out of Business

It's the end of an era at our house today.

A few years ago, my son was very much into putting things into plastic shopping bags and carrying them around. For a while, if anything was missing around the house, we'd go look through the pile of bags in his room, and sure enough, the little packrat would have it all wrapped up somewhere.

To try to mutate that into something that looked like more ordinary pretend play, we turned his closet into a mini-mart. His clothes came out, some shelves went in, and we stocked them with empty food boxes, canned goods, plastic bags filled with packing pellets. Old outgrown socks stood in for fish, a toy cash register processed orders, and we hung one of those "We Will Return At" signs on the front for when the store wasn't in use.

But it was in use a lot. He played with that store all the time. He made his uncle go shopping with him, and they'd cover his bed with stuffed bags of groceries, and then put everything away. He had a little play grocery cart, graduated to an adding machine for order processing, and generally kept his store in better order than the rest of his disastrous room.

The other day, though, my husband mentioned that our son hadn't been using the store much anymore. And true enough, I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen it in action. He and his uncle have some car-related games they play in the garage now. As all kids do with playthings, he'd moved on.

And so I asked him yesterday if he was ready to clear out the store and return it to clothing duty, and he didn't hesitate. I told him to take his time and think about it, not wanting to trample on sentiment, but he seemed unconcerned.

Today, he's clearing it out, by himself. Meaning two milestones are passing here: Giving up his pretend store, and cleaning his room alone.

It's a big day, and I couldn't be prouder. Or happier to be able to take clothes out of baskets and overstuffed drawers and put them on those old store shelves.

But you know what? There are times I'll miss knowing that if I need canned goods, there's a mini-mart just down the hall. And there are times I'll miss that cute little guy who used to run it.