Saturday, February 05, 2011

Lego Foul!

Apparently, I made a huge lego mommy foul this morning. Grayson got Lego city and something else for Christmas. He wanted to open them. I had been holding off due to all the construction chaos, but felt bad for him and relented. He opened all the bags and mixed them up. He played with them from 9 a.m. until bedtime. He had a great time. Peter came home about 3 p.m. And said, "What have you done? We can't open them all up at once. I was stunned. The kid played all day very happily. Why on earth would kids want to play with something that required so much following of directions. It seems terribly un-fun and doesn't seem to use much of the imagination. So, apparently you put them together and just leave them that way. I don't get it. Grayson was very happy to follow the directions and wants to display them or pretend play with the complete pieces. Lillian and I pitched in to locate the pieces needed to put together the bus. We didn't finish, but worked as a family for about an hour. It was good family bonding. At this rate, we may finish by next Christmas. So, I learned some stuff about legos and I also saw my boy have a great day playing with them both ways.

4 comments:

Jeremy said...

One of my favorite authors, Michael Chabon, has a chapter in his book Manhood for Amateurs on children and Legos. If it makes you feel better, he sides with you. You can read a bit about it here (http://io9.com/#!5382735/michael-chabon-star-wars-legos-prove-kids-are-still-remixing-the-force) or listen to him discuss it here (http://authorsontourlive.com/michael-chabon-waxes-poetic-about-legos/)

2WeeMonsters said...

We love Legos over here. Until Christmas, they've only had Jim & my old ones all mixed up. D got a couple kits for Christmas though and has had some fun putting hthme together. I have to say, though, they both seem to gravitate back to just playing with them, building free form.

Gail Havnes said...

I'm amazed that my boys can still look in a box of mixed-up legos and tell which one came from which set, and which ones belong to whom. They all played with them for years -- both ways, following directions and making up their own stuff. Last time we used them was with the 4 Leung boys a couple years ago, their youngest(2?) to our oldest (29?) all building castles and then having a huge battle. Great toy!

Tirzah said...

The boys get lost in the legos quite often around here and I have never seen them move as fast as they do when 'monster Cora' is on her way to destroy something. Jack LOVES the directions but now that it is february he and Rob are going back and forth from following the directions and building 'free' which is pretty awesome and I feel like it has opened alot of imagination doors. By the way Cora is estatic if she sneaks a lego and then miserable when it is taken away. Her version of heights and depths :)