Dear Ivan:

I write to you today about a very important subject: toys.

Let me start by saying that I understand how important toys are for you.  I recognize that in the Pantheon of stuff that you care about, toys rank just slightly below cookies and tv and above sleep, water, and air.  And, it is because of this, I realize, that you want to go toy shopping every single day, and, indeed, multiple times per day.

However, let me note one small hiccup in that plan.  In order to acquire toys, one must have a large collection of rectangular green paper, which grown-ups like Mommy and Daddy call “cash.”  You may be familiar with it.  In fact, as you may recall, every time Daddy gives some of this “cash” to people, he is very sad.

In any event, to get toys, you need cash.  And, because Mommy and Daddy don’t have so much right now, they’d like to try to hold onto the little they have.

Also, and I don’t mean to be mean about this, but in case you haven’t looked around the apartment lately, you have a lot of toys already.  And, by “a lot” I mean “too many.”  Don’t get me wrong.  I know that as a 4-year-old, you have a God-given-right to toys, but when you get to the point where you can’t remember where you put them and you live in an apartment as small as ours (the size of a shoebox), it means you have too many.  I mean, not to be dramatic here, but our apartment is so small, it’s literally impossible to lose anything in here except maybe your mind.  So, the idea that you can’t find 3 18-inch high Star Wars action figures means something’s wrong.  Either you have way too many toys to keep track of, or, alternatively, a teeny, tiny toy hitman whacked your Star Wars pals and buried the bodies.  I choose to believe the former, rather than the latter.

The other way I know you have too many toys is that I opened my eyes and observed that “YOU HAVE TOO MANY TOYS!!”

Thing is, I recognize that there is an implicit contract between parent and child, which states that I cannot throw anything of yours away till you are “good and goddamn ready” to part with it.  I know this because the offices of psychologists across the country are filled with people who are there to deal with their ongoing grief for their childhoods, which were ruined by parents who tossed out their binky prematurely.

So, rest assured, I’m not going to throw out your toys (much as I would love to throw into a burning funeral pyre that damn pony that neighs every time I bump into my desk).   But, that doesn’t mean I have to run to increase the stock.  I mean at some point, unlike with, say, GOP Presidential debates, enough is enough.

I understand that this does not come as welcome news for you.  I understand that for you the answer to “how many toys do I need?” is somewhere between “a googolplex” and “infinity.”  I get it.  I used to be 4 (of course, that was in the last milennium, when children toys were still made in the US and not China and when children could be kept occupied for 12 hours at a time with nothing more than a backyard and a Nerf football).  So, I’m not without sympathy and empathy for your situation.

That is why when your stock of toys dwindles, when you engage in unilateral toy disarmament (either through destruction of your current collection or because they simply disappear into the nether world otherwise occupied by boogers and other things that go missing), I will reconsider your request for toys.  But, until that day comes, you’re going to have to be satisfied with your current collection of toys, which, if my estimates are correct, could fill Madison Square Garden.

In the meantime, though, to help ease the pain, I will let you watch an additional half-hour of tv tonight.  I hope it will be some small solace (I also hope that it will keep you occupied and quiet for about an hour and a half because I need to do some work).

Love,

Daddy