Kiddo#3 has decided Star Wars Legos are the meaning of life. After buying a Star Wars Lego t-shirt (which he wears unless I forcibly remove it from him to toss it in the wash) he counted his money and he had barely enough to buy one set: some snow troopers and a snow speeder.
He looked forward to this Lego set for over a week. I madea special trip to Toys R Us in order to get them, and as soon as we got home, he tried to assemble them. Of course, Kiddo#4 wanted in on the act, and after about 10 minutes I declared it impossible.
“I can’t assemble these tiny Lego pieces with the baby taking the instructions and touching all the pieces,” I said. So I left out the snow trooper figures and put the rest into a plastic bag, then back into the box, and then the box into a safe place.
By the end of the day, Kiddo#3 had taken down the Legos, and ever since then I’ve been finding tiny pieces and headless snow troopers all over the house.
Yesterday, Kiddo#3 found the instruction book and asked me to assemble the speeder. Which I’d love to do, except some of the necessary pieces are gone.
After about 20 minutes, I said, “This is as much as I can do without the rest of the pieces.”
It drives me nuts that he loses everything, taking everything in the house and imagining it’s something else, then scattering it everywhere. He did this with a game he received for his birthday: before we’d ever played it, he’d opened the box, ripped open the plastic with the pieces, put the pieces in the holding bag,and then proceeded to sling the bag all around the house so that when we had a chance to play the game, we couldn’t find the instructions and it took us a while to find what we think are probably most of the pieces.
He sulked while I put the semi-assembled speeder back in the plastic bag until more pieces show up. And then I went into the living room…
…to find Kiddo#4. Kiddo#4 has some issues with losing things, but in this case, he’d had the opposite luck. He’d found the box where we keep all the girl scout cookies.
And there he’d sat, while I lamented Legos lost, rejoicing in LemonAdes found.
He had one in each hand and two more on his lap, two of them bitten. I only shook my head and rescued the unbitten ones, then repacked the box and set the larger box on high. (Kiddo#4 then hid beneath the piano, facing the back. That wasn’t shame, if you’re wondering: he wanted to finish consuming his prize.)
And there you have it, in the same house at the same time, the lost and the found.
One man’s Lego is another man’s cookie. 🙂 Cute story, Philangelus!
They actually make candy bricks that look like Legos, but I’m not sure you can build with them. 🙂 Then both boys would be happy.
Short of a taller fridge and locking up the step ladder, you’re doing all you can. He’ll either grow out of it or leave home.