I saw a post one time that said, “One time you went outside to play with your friends and it was the last time, neither of you knew it.”

This made me start to think. Are there other things that we, as busy kids and teenagers, take for granted until they are gone before we know? This week in class, we started talking about Webkinz and how we never logged on again and killed all of our pets because of it. Realizing this, we all quickly went to the Webkinz website and tried to log in, but to no avail. We came to the conclusion that we just grew up and forgot about Webkins and moved on to something new. Something that had been such a major part of our childhoods was so easily forgotten.

Webkinz, Crocs, Club Penguins, and Silly Bands are all things during our childhood that we thought were so cool, but were quickly replaced by newer and “better” things.

For me, when I was growing up, I always had favorite toys or websites, but as I write this story, I realize how many different things were my “favorite” but did not last very long.

The first favorite thing that I loved to do when I was little was, obviously, to play outside. I used to go to my backyard and catch worms from these huge barrels that we plant flowers in. I would catch them and stick them in a container and fill it with water so they could go swimming. Little did I know, worms cannot breath under water. So basically, my favorite way to pass time as a child was to drown worms.

About five years later, my new favorite thing was my sister’s Game Boy.  I remember we used to have a Charlotte’s Web game where you walked around as Wilbur and solved some mysteries. My sister and I used to take turns playing that in the car on long road trips and almost all the time at home. My family still uses that same Game Boy to this day on road trips. However, instead of playing Charlotte’s Web, we play Yahtzee.

About a year or two after the Game Boy started to get boring for me, I got a Nintendo DS. This handheld game was the coolest thing I had ever owned. All of my cousins had one and we would all go in chat rooms and talk at Christmas or Thanksgiving. Other times, we would play Mario Kart or Super Mario Bros. I still have that Nintendo DS and, on very rare occasions, I still play Mario Kart to see if my skills are still on point.

The first time I was exposed to more modern video games was the Wii. We got a Wii one Christmas and it was the coolest thing ever. We loved to make random Mii’s, play Just Dance at family gatherings, and play Wii Sports or Wii Sports Resort. Lately, the only thing we used the Wii for was to get on Netflix, but now we can do it through an AV port.

Somewhere in this mix, I got an iPod. I thought it was pretty cool. It took me about 6 months to discover YouTube and Instagram, though. I do not know where that iPod ended up or what even happened to it.

The Wii lasted quite a while, and it was around my middle school years when I moved on to an Xbox. All of my friends had an Xbox so, naturally, I asked for one for Christmas so I could play with them. I played Halo all the time that following summer, along with Minecraft.

When I finally got my first phone my 8th grade year, nothing else mattered. I could text my friends away from Wifi, I finally found out what Snapchat was, and I downloaded countless games. I updated my IPhone from a 4 to a 6S over these few years. I still use my phone a lot, which is probably not going to change.

You may have noticed that I had a lot of stuff as a kid. But all of the things I got, I took for granted until now. I bet if you think back, there are a lot of things that you had as a child that you either out grew or forgot. If there is anything that you as the reader should get from this story is that you should always try not to take things for granted, as you never know when you will do something for the last time. It is inevitable to grow up, what truly matters is what you bring with you as you do it.