Lego, My Drug of Choice

Paying homage to our drug of choice at the Lego
exhibit at the Kennedy Center's Nordic Cool event.

I don't remember playing with Legos as a child as much as my children love to play with them. My older brothers had a big, sturdy Lego box that looked like a tool box. I guess we were supposed to put away the different size pieces in the various compartments, but by the time I got ahold of that box, there was no order anymore.

Legos weren't very inspiring to me. As a creative dunce, there are only so many times that building a block out of blocks is fun. For my kids, on the other hand, Legos are treasures. It took me a while to realize the gold I was sitting on.

After we got rid of the TV, I worried what to do with my youngest while I schooled the older kids. With the TV, I had visual valium. I won't lie, it was awesome. I could sit a kid in front of The Wiggles or Dora the Explorer and never have to worry that a whole roll of toilet paper would be unraveled and flushed (i.e. stuck) down the toilet yet again.

My youngest aren't the only children that I doped up with the TV. When my oldest was 9 months old, I got pregnant. Then when the second child was a year, I got pregnant again. Exhausted almost to the point of death, I somehow had to care for a 2 year old and 1 year old while growing another child. One time their dad came home from work to find me passed out on the couch with the babies standing on the kitchen table playing with sharp knives. I think it was his terrified cries that roused me from the coma because that was the day I had tried to tire them out at the playground but wound up being the only person to take a nap.

For their safety, I assure you that I was only thinking of them, I sat them down infront of the retro TV shows on Cartoon Network for the rest of that pregnancy. With the babies transfixed on episodes of The Justice League that date back to when I was a kid, I was able to collapse in peace for the next six months knowing that I wouldn't wake up to find them trying to kill themselves.

Sitting my kids in front of the TV had gotten me through pregnancies, school days, naps, tutoring online, coffee with my friends... I mean, TV was like the nanny who had lived with us so long, it had become a member of the family! Getting rid of the TV induced a bit of a panic to rise within me. Was I to be forced to go back to those Dark Ages of wild children who opened the front door and ran away? So I was so relieved when I discovered that I have another drug in the house, and I've had it all along. My kids will play Legos for hours.

One of my favorite creations that they built was a classical temple that my daughter constructed after I read aloud a book about life in ancient Greece. Using the boring black and white picture from the book published over 60 years ago, she carefully copied what she saw. Doric columns and  blocky statues of Athena decorated the outside of her temple. As you can imagine, that was an all morning project.

My youngest, the one I worried about the most after the absence of TV, will play with Legos while I read aloud to the other kids. After our hour of reading, we move onto other subjects, but I will find him still there creating battles with the Lego men and destroying his own buildings. Well, it is war after all.

Thanks to Legos, I'm not so worried anymore when I haven't heard from the youngest mischief makers because I typically find them busy snapping and unsnapping Lego pieces. Permanent marker all over the wall? That's from that era known as pre Lego. Sharpie on the real ivory keys of the baby grand piano? Also, pre Lego era. Wet toilet paper painted on the wall with a toilet brush? You got it -- pre Lego era. No longer do I worry that all the spices will be shaken out of their bottles or the dirt from planters smeared all over the rugs. Thanks to fake plants and Legos, I know I'll probably find them constructively using their imaginations.

Legos sound like the cure-all drug, but they are not. Still, I find my youngest son and daughter looking like thespians after a fun go at my make up. Eye liner will create new eyebrows that cut their foreheads in half. Blush is applied all over their face making them look like they spent too much time in the sun. Still they both get into their older siblings rooms and trash them. Piggy banks are emptied and then forgotten. Drawers are overturned onto the floor. Regular shake downs still occur at our home.

But even with all of the ransacking and looting, it doesn't happen as much in this Lego era that I will also dub the Golden Era. In this time of peace and constructive imaginative play, we are all benefiting. The kids are funneling their creativity away from danger, and I now have a way to ignore my youngest guilt-free.