I know this has happened to every parent out there, and I know you will agree with me when I say “it hurts”. It hurts a lot, in fact. Stepping on a Lego – or worse, a cluster of them when you are bare or sock footed – is very, very painful. How can a tiny little thing hurt so much? I mean, c’mon. I’m much bigger and I weigh much more than a stupid little miniscule ounce of plastic. It’s happened to me for years, and it happens often. So after a weekend where my hoofers were punctuated by plastic cubes, bricks, parts and sticks, this morning I put on a pair of badgurl spiky shooze and considered taking some revenge on those little suckers. That’s right. I had plans to trod all over them, jump up and down and crush those little buggers. With shooze that would hurt them back. But in the end, I just couldn’t do it.
You see, I have a love-hate relationship with Legos. While they attack my soles and arches, choke my dog’s esophagus and wreck havoc on my vacuum cleaner, they are simultaneously fostering very important skills in my children. Have you ever pondered why young infants/toddlers built towers as tall as they can and then knock it down and start all over again? Ever wonder why they don’t get upset when the blocks come crashing down and their creation has been ruined? Well, it’s not about the destruction. It’s about the sense of accomplishment that a child gets when he creates something out of his imagination. Albert Einstein said “Imagination is more important than knowledge” and I – the right brained Mamagirl that I am – firmly agree with this statement. They have been around since 1932, invented by a Danish family that still privately holds the company. Not only do Legos enable hours and hours of creative building, they also instill patience, determination, hand-eye coordination, fine motor skills, dexterity and the ability to follow instructions. My sister calls them “the babysitter” because her son will play – completely focused and not causing any problems – for about 5 consecutive hours. And I will say…it is addictive. I’ve definitely spent a few Christmas days putting together Indiana Jones Lego sets or Star Wars spaceships or Batman mobiles or Power Miners and robots. I like the instant gratification (OK, not really instant – it DOES take hours) of assembling a complex model. I get just as transfixed by the project as Gus does. We can literally do it for hours. On the other hand, another addictive quality about Legos is that I am completely a freak fanatic about keeping them organized. They are EXPENSIVE so it drives me crazy when pieces from one set gets mixed into another set. It was really close to impossible to prevent that, so I devised a new system. Any of my babysitters will attest to the fact that I am The Lego Tyrant. I buy compartmentalized containers from The Container Store and I am maniacal about having all the Lego pieces sorted by color into their own compartments. I have the Lego instructions bound in a Lego instruction binder in the playroom. This weekend, I was making a helicopter with Gus. I wound the string around the crane’s pulley and figured out how to attach it to the chopper engine so that the Lego man could crank himself down and save anyone who needed to be rescued. When I turned the instruction page and found out that there were a few pages missing to the manual, I WENT BANANAS. How could I be about ¾ finished with the project – at least 3 hours into it –and not be able to finish?
Then, it is moments like these…when I realize Legos aren’t my toy. They are my children’s. And my children don’t care if they are mixed up, missing pieces and not perfect. I can learn good lessons from my kids. Perfection isn’t really important. Sometimes you just have to let it go. Sighhhhhh.
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