Why Can't Lego Click?

You know your sons a Lego Maniac when you go to give him a kiss goodnight... after he is supposed to be IN bed mind you, and find him on the floor putting together his new Lego set. That's right, for a while now he no longer waits for me to help him open the box, cut open the bags, unfold in the instructions "just so" and start sorting the pieces. He is proficient enough that he just dives in himself.

Awsumb began his obsession with Legos way before he even knew they were Legos. Kenneth and I worked hard to acquire some really great Duplo sets when he was a toddler. At the time Lego was going through some changes and there wasn’t much available other than the basic Duplo Bucket (Legos’s toddler version of their famous bricks, not to be confused with Megablocks or other such copy cats). We were lucky enough to score some great sets at a toy liquidator and of course the Bob the Builder sets came around just in time for his Bob the Builder stage.

Then sometime after his 4th birthday a friend gave him his first real Lego set. It was a small set with only about 10 steps to build a simple race car. Awsumb followed the instructions putting the set together, taking it apart, over and over again. Not yet being the Lego connoisseur I have now become, I asked my friend where to get simple small sets. I found Lego offered quite a few small sets… The first ones we started buying were of these little Knights that fans often refered to as the 'Rainbow Knight' collection. The Knight’s Kingdom collection was simple and sweet, each knight donning his unique color, thus many Lego fans regarded them as childish. The Lego website had some really great stories about these little Knights and especially one young, but fast Knight who learns and grows and becomes King. Awsumb was hooked for life!

The Legos that I had been stuffing in Kenneth’s stockings for years came home from the office to live at our house and Legos basically became part of the family budget! I called Lego parts department and was able to acquire all the little characters from the Knights set that he had grown to love (TIP- The parts department can be your best friend!) By the time Awsumb was 5 or 6 he was putting together pretty complicated sets. If the set was a large one we often helped him find the pieces or snap the pieces together a bit more tightly for him. Then over the years he took over most of the Lego building in our house.

Right away I began to have puzzling questions about Legos... How they should be played with, stored, etc. When I was a child we had one or two basic boxed sets. I am not sure they even came with any more instructions that a few suggested things to build on the box. The sets came with some wheels, minifigs and a few specialty pieces, but were pretty basic sets… what you decided to build was completely up to you. I quickly realized this wasn’t how Legos were these days. Legos came in sets… Branded Sets. Besides the original stories Lego was coming up with they had Star Wars and other popular characters. And of course those were the sets that Awsumb wanted.

This of course meant that one set was meant to build one or two specific things. Being the perfectly organized person that I have to be, I was struggling trying to figure out if I should be letting him 'free build' with all these cool sets, or keeping them all segregated to individual ziplock bags with their individual instructions. What I realized was that in the end that segregation was not fair. BUT I couldn’t have the little cute Rainbow Knights mixing with the Star Wars or other characters either! What was I supposed to do with this organizing dilemma?

I came across this article and it helped me understand where some of my anxiety was coming from. Click here to read Why Lego’s Can’t Click. Yes, Legos sets were a complicated issue. Thus a new decree was declared in our house… “Lego sets must first be built to the instruction booklet specification.” Then they would become part of a free build bucket… still segregated to their themes of course!

And this is how we came to build the wall that is now A Lego Bucket Wall in Awsumb’s room. (No, I won’t show you a photo!). Awsumb has one or more buckets for each theme: City, Knights, Star Wars, Batman, Indiana Jones, Racers, etc. Each theme is allowed out one at a time (thus proper segregation!). And the original instructions are filed perfectly away for future rebuilds (which does happen from time to time). But for the most part once the suggestion ship or car is completed it is cannibalized to become a new creation.

An additional tip is that when we reached the point that Awsumb’s Lego creations were displayed and being played with all over the family room I couldn’t take it anymore! So, I bought a train table, which turned out to be perfect because the raised edges keep the tiny pieces from falling on the floor. And finally we had a Lego Creation Studio right in our own family room! Do Legos still end up on the floor? Sometimes, but I always threaten with the vacuum and that seems to work!