Lego Lament

Wade is one of my best "self- entertainment" kids. We can turn off the TV, and he can find a myriad of things to do. He puts together the mickey mouse puzzle (shown here) again and again. He will play with toys, make a mess, play with blocks and play with his Legos. . . for a long, long time. It is really great to have a kid who can keep himself occupied during those precious precious napping hours of a toddler.


These Legos aren't even HIS Legos. They are Jaxon's Legos. We held off on buying Legos for a long, long time. As a matter of fact, this Christmas was the first time we bought a Lego set. . . . it was for Jaxon. . . but he never plays with it. He doesn't have the patience for it. Wade does. . . . actually, Wade just plays with the "Lego guys". . . he takes their legs off, their heads, their hats, and puts them all back together again in a different order. Shall we call it, Barbie dress up? I mean, Lego guy dress up?


Here are a few of the latest creations. If you look really closely, you can see teeth marks on the legs of the white "Lego guy" because that is the only way Wade can take the legs off. Peter taught him that trick, after I decided "quiet time" was far too full of me constantly changing "Lego guy" clothes.

Tonight, we paid a visit to the Lego store. It was a first for Wade, and he was. . .overwhelmed. He saw the bin of "Lego guy" parts that you can create a pack of three. They are $9.99 for three. A little too much for some Lego guys. The clerk quickly showed me to some singles. They were in bags, and you could not see what kind of Lego guy you were going to get. But the clerk promised me that every single one was unique and un-like the other, and had parts that you can't buy in the "build your own" section.

I was intrigued.

I let each of the boys pick out a bag.

When we got home, I let the boys open their bags. Jaxon opened his, and it was this awesome Musketeer. Cool hat, shirt and sword. Nothing short of Awesome.


Then Wade opened his. . . and before I could even get it assembled he started to cry. . and scream, and wail in horrifying disgust.

His Lego guy.

Was a Lego GIRL.

Wade was not happy.

He wants nothing to do with Lego Lady.

The Happy People of Pennsylvania

Abby is working on a state project for her class. Gotta love the 4th grade. One of the pros, and cons, of her teacher this year is that they don't have a lot of homework. The pro is that she does most of the work for her big "projects" at school. They are given time, they work on it little by little and they learn to do these projects on their own, instead of having their parents do it for them.

I like that part.

The part I don't like is that when she is struggling in class, I have no idea about what to help her with because we don't have homework coming home.

I don't like that part.

For her state project Abby chose the state of Pennsylvania. Not Utah (where most of our extended family lives), not Washington (where she has lived most of her life and more extended family lives), not Oregon (where she was born), not California (where she loves to visit).

PENNSYLVANIA.

I have nothing against Pennsylvania. But could not for the life of me figure out why she chose Pennsylvania.

When I asked her, why? She said, "Because that is where Hershey's Chocolate is made." No lie.

I have no idea where she gets that from.

Anywho, last night was the first time I saw this project. Or the paper associated with the project. She was "working on it" which included nearly 40 minutes of changing font colors and sizes. (She does NOT get that from me) I finally told her that she needed to actually finish WRITING the project before tweaking the fonts.

Peter helped her print out the project last night, and it had a very colorful flag on the front. I figured it was probably the state symbol. It did occur to me that it was a rather bright flag and that it was a "little much" for a state flag, but didn't really give it a second thought.

This morning, as Abby was preparing for school and happily chatting about her fortune cookie from the day before and and asking me if I saw her report. "Mom, did you see my report?" "Yes, I did Abby, it looks great!" "Do you like the flag on the front? I have no idea why, but it is called the g*y flag of Pennsylvania!"
My eyes immediately darted to the image on the top page of her report, and I saw this.

The g*y flag of Pennsylvania

My instant reaction was to laugh out loud. But, decided against crushing my creative daughter's artistic eye. "Abby, " I said. "You can use that flag on the front of your report, but you CANNOT tell ANYONE it is called the g*y flag of Pennsylvania!" She looked at me with curiosity. "Why not?" I had a quick discussion with her regarding the term and the symbols at hand, and then, once she was busy with making her breakfast, ran into the bathroom to have a good laugh with Peter.

Gotta love the happy people of Pennsylvania!!!

Sidenote: In order to find this flag on-line, I had to scroll through at least 30 copies of the CORRECT flag of Pennsylvania in order to find the one that Abby thought was artistically sufficient for her paper.