Like most boys their ages, Addison and Hayden have had a longstanding love affair with Legos. And like most parents of boys who have longstanding love affairs with Legos, Patrick and I have had a longstanding love/hate relationship with the little buggers (the Legos, not the boys).
Oh yes, everything is awesome when it comes to Legos, right up until that moment your bare foot steps down onto one of those damn bricks in the dark of the night. And then all bets are off. Nothing compares to the excruciating, mind-blowing, body-bending, curse-inducing pain of stepping on a Lego. It never seemed to matter the hours we spent picking up those teeny tiny little pieces before we went to bed. Somehow we always seemed to miss a brick or two. And it always seemed to be the tender arch of my foot that would inevitably find it later in the night.
It took one unfortunately placed Lego several years ago to make me totally lose my mind. Maybe I was overly tired. Maybe I was stressed about having to fly the following morning at o’dark hundred and not getting enough sleep. Maybe my husband had eaten the last of the ice cream the evening before and I was still grumpy about it. But the middle of that night when I set my foot down on that Lego, when it jabbed into the softest part of my sole, when I truly thought I would die, that the pain was actually going to kill me, I snapped. When I was finally able to uncoil myself from the fetal position and pull myself off the floor, I flipped on every light in the house. Sleepy, befuddled little boys and an all-knowing husband looked on as I hobbled from room to room and packed every Lego I could find into boxes, then hauled them out to our shop garage. I was done stepping on Legos in the dark of the night inside our house. Done. D-o-n-e. Done.
Over the next year, after a fresh coat of paint and several trips to Ikea, the shop garage evolved into what we now call The Lego Shop. The space that the boys first boycotted, the space that incited foot stomping, whining, and tears, the space that was too lonely, too cold, had too many spiders and a floor that was too hard, is now one of their favorite places to play. If they aren’t running around outside, getting muddy and creating mountains of laundry for me to do, you can bet that you’ll probably find them in there, building and creating like there’s no end in sight, just as happy as they can be. And considering my feet are no longer perpetually bruised, I’m a pretty happy mama again, too.
So welcome to Addison’s and Hayden’s Lego shop! Oh, and if you happen to come in barefoot, do step gingerly. And don’t say I didn’t warn you!
My Silly Monkeys 