Legoland

Ben has become obsessed with Legos.  Having been obsessed with Legos myself for a period (flashback to the castle series in the 80s), I completely understand Lego love.  What surprises me, is that he is only 3 years old and barely has the fine motor skills to scribble.  And yet, he spends all his waking hours (ALL) building, playing with, and manipulating Lego mini-figures, having Lego battles, and transporting Lego pieces all over the house. He wants nothing to do with age-appropriate Duplo blocks.  He's obsessed with the "big kid" blocks. I can't blame him there, Duplo blocks do not have the detail or building potential of real Legos.

Unlike my own obsessive-compulsive tendencies to maintain inflexible boundaries among various types of Lego sets (Star Wars stay with Star Wars, pirates with pirates, castle with castle, etc.), Ben is not bounded by these rigid guidelines.  He combines any and all pieces to create leagues of Lego superheroes and knights and bad guys. He even combines people pieces with non-people pieces. Gasp!  The result is an incredibly creative and ever-changing set of Lego guys.  And all these "Lego guys" travel around the house and have "awesome" battles with requisite sound effects.

All this Lego-loving has some implications for our house, which I am hereby renaming: Legoland. (Unlike the real Legoland in California, I do not charge admission. Shoes highly recommended.)

1) The dining room has become the Lego Room. We haven't eaten in there in months. Actually, from a dining perspective, this is no problem since we eat all our meals around the kitchen table anyway , but I can't decide if having my formal dining room as a Lego room says I am a cool and free-spirited mom, or if it just shows that I've lost control in yet another area of my life.

2) Vacuuming has become much more challenging.  Ben carries his Lego guys all over the house to go on adventures.  While I support expanding his imagination and all, the little tiny Lego pieces are getting strewn everywhere. So, in addition to the typical pre-vacuum pick-up, there is now a pre-vacuum scour the floor for teeny, tiny Lego pieces.  I can't just vacuum without looking for pieces up -- I could accidentally vacuum up something important!  (The OC part of me must maintain complete sets of Legos!)

3) The newspaper and mail have become much more important.  Now that Halloween is over, the Christmas shopping season has begun in earnest (or so I've heard), and the Sunday paper and daily mail is chock full of toy catalogs full of pictures of Lego sets.  When not playing with the Lego guys, Ben has been intensely reviewing these catalogs and telling me which sets he would like (all of them, actually).  His favorite set to longingly gaze at is the $400 Star Wars Death Star set that comes with 16 (!!!) Lego mini-figures.  Pops recently brought up this season's Lego store catalog -- which is 50+ pages of Lego dreams.  Ben has been carrying it with him around the house, like some young children do with lovies or blankies. 

I tell you the boy is obsessed.