"Why'd you move the pipes in the couch?!"

There are toys that parents enjoy playing with as much (or more) than our kids and there are toys that we wish our kids did not love. The dismantled soccer goal is one I wish Nathan were done with. We got it in the tired-of-winter days of February when we were looking for more indoor activities. It was a soccer goal for about an hour. Then it was quickly dismantled into 6 plastic poles, 6 L shaped connectors and a floppy net. It turns out that these poles have many uses: baseball bats, periscopes, sword sheaths, water sprayers, plumbing pipes, fishing poles, musical instruments, shooters and marble tracks to name a few.

What annoys me about them is that they are cracking on the ends and have sharp plastic parts despite the masking tape attempt at safety and they are often flying in the air throughout the day or poking into my ribs during bedtime stories (he usually sleeps with a few in hand).

I have been tempted to throw them out or at least "retire" the broken ones to the basement. But in the same way that I have a sixth sense about where my children are even when I'm not watching, Nathan seems to feel when one of his poles has been moved. From another room I heard a distressed voice, "Why'd you move the pipes in the couch?!" I guess I was trying to clean up. I had moved the poles from behind the pillows in the couch, but I hadn't realized he was laying pipe and I assumed he wouldn't notice right away since he couldn't see them. Silly me. When I hear the way Nathan talks about his poles and clearly loves to work with them, I have the endurance for a little more time with these broken apart, broken-down toys.