Lego Amnesty Day

Yesterday was Lego "amnesty day" at our house. That has such a nice ring to it as opposed to "we have to find all the little tiny Lego pieces and put them back together" day. And still be able to keep your sanity. For anyone who has a child between the ages of 7-12, you have had a Lego amnesty day at least once.

Each Lego creation starts on a Christmas morning or after a birthday party with a box displaying an amazing picture on the front. There is also a number in large type showing how many teeny, tiny Lego pieces are in that box. I have never known it to be a nice round number. It is always 672 or 1456 pieces. Nothing that ends in 0.

Harry, Ron, and the Giant Spider
after two months

The excitement builds as we open smaller bags of Legos, carefully sort them, and follow multi-page instruction booklets to build wondrous creations. Once it is built (and hopefully for at least a week), you son or daughter or sometimes both at the same time with a minimum amount of squabbling will play with the castle, police station, or pet shop and have a great time. But slowly, it begins...

The first thing to go missing is normally one of the hats of the mini-figures or items that the hold in their hands.  One day their are still six firemen but only 5 hats, or one of the firemen do not have an ax or fire  hose to hold anymore.  The fire engine is there, but it only has half a siren.  In our case, Hogwarts was still intact, but Ron and Hermione had lost their wands, and there were fewer bottles on the shelves in the potions classroom.

The next phase of the de-construction was the intricate connecting pieces.  I love Lego and Lego bricks were designed to connect one rectangle or square brick to another and build what you imagination could conjure up.  Nowadays, with the more intricate sets, there are hinged pieces that connect sections of Hogwarts castle and it can open and close.  There is a hinged roof in the Great Hall and delicate connectors with the castle spires.  Soon, we had sections of Hogwarts that were detached, free floating, or spires had fallen down making it look more like Hogwarts after the great battle, than during the early books of Harry Potter.

The last, and inevitable stage, is pieces then get re-used into other Lego creations and you are left with a hallowed out shell of Hogwarts.  This brought us to Lego Amnesty day.  My wife and kids and I spent the better part of two hours leafing through the multi-page instruction books, looking at the pictures, figuring out what was missing, and piecing it back together.  More than once I would sort through the plastic bin of parts looking for a white, 1x2 piece.  "Is that smooth on the top or does it have the dimples?" I would ask.  I would sort and scan repeatedly as pieces blurred and then the moment of triumph as I proudly handed the piece over to my wife to be greeted with, "OK, now we need a brown 1x3 sloped piece for a roof."  What have you done for me lately.  On the good news side, after two hours, the roofs were fixed, Harry and all his mini figure friends were back together, and each had a wand and appropriate props to hold.

 The Hogwarts Express, Hogwarts castle, all characters,
dement ors, wands, etc 15 minutes after we completed it

Some advice to anyone embarking on this journey.  Sort all your pieces by color.  It is easier to find the little ones if you are only looking in the red or white pile.  If you can sort by size, that is a bonus!  It just depends on how much time you have.  I can say that I did do one thing correct and will continue to do it in the future.  On that Christmas morning, after the new Lego is assembled, take the instruction book and put it in a very safe place!

A preview of my next weekend is shown below.  It may not look like it, but that is a fire station, two fire engines, a fire boat, and about 8-10 mini figure fireman, with hats and axes and tools.  Wish me luck!

The Halloween Candy Haul

Halloween is always fun for kids!  The get to dress up in costume (or costumes if they go to multiple Halloween parties), stay up late, and go get candy at every house they can walk to in the neighborhood.  That is a pretty good deal when you are nine years old.

This year, our Halloween quest began on a clear, and not to chilly of an evening.  These are the two most important things that make Halloween fun for the parents.  Delaney was a cheerleader complete with pom-poms and Andrew was Rom Weasley from the Harry Potter books.  We had been invited over to our neighbors for a quick dinner and then the kids would set out on their candy quest together.

We left the house just a few minutes past 7:00pm and figured we had almost two hours to knock on as many doors before our trick or treaters needed to be back home.  We set off at a brisk pace with our mission objective clearly defined.  One of our friend's son had made a robot costume out of a large cardboard box, including a helmet to wear over his face and head.  He was always the last of the trick or treat line because going up and down stairs to each house was a little more challenging than he had anticipated.  It reminded me of my brother and I when we were younger.  Steve and I would always work on an elaborate costume for him to wear to school and win the Halloween contest each year.  One year he was a TV set, the next a toilet, and one year he was a package of Wrigley chewing gum.  Anyway, when it came time to trick or treat, he would dress as a soccer player, or a robber in easy to wear and walk in clothes, and I would wear the awkward, bulky costume that made it difficult to navigate steps or not trip on things.

Anyway, back to our Halloween this year.  The kids had been out an hour and had covered many houses, and even a mini haunted house set up on someone's front porch.  It had a fog machine and black lights, it was quite impressive.  The motivation began to dwindle though, as they had a good amount of candy already in their bags and they were starting to get thirty and tired of walking up and down hills.  The pace had slowed, but the lure of candy kept them going.  Once we asked if they had had enough, and the majority said yes, we headed back to home base and the pace quicken up again.

The last part of Halloween is my favorite.  the kids dumped their candy bag on the floor in the living room, and then the hard core negotiations began.  I will trade you a "Jolly Ranchers for a Junior Mints" or "I only want Snickers so will anyone trade me 3 Musketeers for Snickers"  There was also the determination about who got the most candy, which each one of my children naturally thought they had more than their sibling.

Yes, Halloween with kids is alot more fun.  I am looking forward to next year.