I Hate Legos

Legos are a wonderful creation that helps children learn geometry, create infinite structures, and sparks the kids' imaginations. I hate Legos.

The Legos of the past are not the same as the Legos of today. You used to be able to get a tub of Legos and just build whatever comes to mind. These tubs included doors, windows, and wheels. So you could create a Lego house that could drive to the ocean (blue throw rug) and float across the sea to an island (kitchen chair) where the Lego people could climb a mountain and explore the salt and pepper shakers.

Today's Legos come in sets. You can build certain structures with each set. The sets vary in size and piece counts. Lego has sets for Star Wars, Special Agents, Pirates, Knights, and Lego City. I know because my kids have at least one set for each of these categories.

These Lego sets are specific to whatever you are building, there are no extra pieces (well, maybe a few) and not much room for imagination. However, the kids learn to follow instructions from a 54 page book for the larger construction sets.

Actually, Mom gets to follow the instructions to the 54 page book while the kids repeatedly ask if the airplane, imperial walker, or pirate ship is done yet. Once the monstrosity is complete it only takes a few hours of playing with it before it is broken apart again. The 564 piece airplane gets thrown into the Lego container with the rest of the pieces parts.

So, here's the problem: My five-year-old insisted on getting his soon to be seven-year-old brother a new Lego set for his birthday. It is a medieval castle that he used part of his allowance money to buy (I chipped in the rest). I tried to steer him towards any other kind of toy but he insisted that his brother needed more Legos.

In my infinite wisdom I decided that I needed to put the structures we already had together before any new Legos entered my house and got thrown into the Lego bin abyss. I estimate we have somewhere in the neighborhood of 3,000 Lego pieces parts to all the different structures, plus the two 500 piece bins of just generic Lego building blocks that my husband sought out after a six month search because "Legos just aren't the same as they used to be".

I dumped all the Legos out on the table and started finding the pieces to the giant airplane. The airplane is now together, mostly. Next I went on to the smaller structures. With every set I got stuck looking for a piece so I went on to another one until I got stuck on that one. As of right now, I'm staring at a partially completed rescue boat, imperial walker, ATV, some sort of storm trooper ship, and a fighter jet.

I still have more pieces not put together than constructed. I hate Legos.