My son, the Boy, is a Lego fanatic. I cannot think this is merely a normal interest in Legos. When he has spending money, he spends it on Legos. He wants Lego books and figurines. He wants to buy Legos for other people. He checks out Lego books from the library. Not just the stupid Ninjago or Lego City books with crappy plots and photos of Legos in various poses to support the crappy plot. No, he checks out books on building new Lego creations.I, on the other hand, think Legos are cool...but in a general way. I love that he is interested in Legos over, say, football, or Pokemon, or Nintendo DS. I love that he can look at a picture of a Lego creation and figure out how to build it, and sometimes adapt it to his wild and crazy 6 year old point of view. (Why wouldn't a Lego dinosaur have wheels that fold down out of his tail?) He says he wants to be a Lego Creator, or an engineer. No arguments from me.
The Boy has been dying to have girl Legomen (that's what he says). So, the Husband, being at a mall in Detroit, visited a Lego store. You can build your own Lego people to spec! So, he came home with a Valentine present for his boy... not one, not two, but THREE Lego girls built just for him. He also bought me a Lego Forest Warrior Maiden...which the Boy covets. I put her on the shelf, since he rarely lets me play Legos with him. And I would love to. Building is cool!But, I gotta tell you. I hate how they spread. The Boy builds something crazy cool, and then it must be left up. On display. And then he builds another wild creation, which must be left up on display. Soon, there is an entire shelf full of colorful flying machines, wheeled vehicles, and buildings resembling a pot-smoker's mushroom garden.
So, before you know it, he's reduces his stock of available pieces by half, and is desperately unhappy because he doesn't have enough spare pieces to build his new creations, because he needs the flat blue piece that has a connector on the side. And nothing else will do... And heaven forbid I suggest he look at his museum of creations.
I am a mean mommy sometimes. If I have been getting on his case with too much frequency, and he still won't clean up, I will warn him that I will wreck his creations. And if I have to make that threat too many times, I do it. There is wailing and gnashing of teeth for twenty minutes... and then new creations begin to emerge from the replenished loose Legos bin.
He has a million pieces. I am not exaggerating too much. He has gotten big kits and small ones, general collections, and specific pieces. He inherited his father's collection, which included some of his grandfather's collection. The organization was killing me. Seriously. So, I looked around for a sorter-- this cool sifting box, which organized by size. It was too small. I got him a BIG craft sorter with three slide-out bins and a huge open top. It is kinda cool. Not big enough. He now has two. TWO!! Almost big enough. Legos are now sorted by COLOR...
But, I finally found what I've been looking for. It is a four sided cloth bin, with zippers at each of the four corners. You unzip it and then it folds flat to be a rectangular floor mat. When it is clean up, you zip up the corners again, and yay! The mess is already contained!The Boy doesn't understand why I call that a Lego accessory for me. Anything that means I am not yelling at him to clean up his building materials is a win to me.
