Legos

I loved playing with legos as a kid and now my oldest niece loves them too. But her legos are surely not the ones of my youth. My sets were simply humdreds of lego pieces in different colors, shapes, and sizes and the instruction book was my imagination. (I was delighted when they added doors that opened!) Her sets have wheels and moving pieces and come with instruction books with designs devised by NASA engineers.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say the sets stifle creativity, but I’m not sure she gets the same level of fun out of them as I remember. She’s a gifted kid, well on her way to becoming an overachiever, and when she misses a step she gets frustrated and discouraged. Some of the sets, even for younger kids, require hours of build time and can take days to complete. I’ve had to bail her out more than once. Hedwig and Yoda were memorable, to name just a couple.

When I played with them as a kid I just built whatever inspired me in the moment and played until I was dragged away. I always looked forward to when I could play with them again and feelings of frustration, disappointment, and failure were never ever associated with my beloved legos. Maybe I’m just getting old. At some point I think every generation thinks “things were so much simpler” when…(fill in the blank).

My experiences with her, however, did inspire me to build my own. I recently sold my sunny colored stick-shift Jeep Wrangler. I loved that car and I drove it for over 15 years, but driving stick in a crowded city sapped the life out of me and it had to go. But I miss it. I miss walking out of my house and seeing it sitting in the driveway, bright yellow and happy, no matter what kind of day I was having or what the weather was like…*sigh*.