Lego my Legos

I had the wonderful opportunity to reminisce and act like a child this weekend. Whilst we were visiting our family, my nephew Michael invited me to come downstairs and help him find a Lego guy that had gone inexplicably missing.....a Lego Luke Skywalker. Not being one to turn down an opportunity to help a child, I followed down the steps and began searching through the multiple boxes of Legos intertwined with a slew of miscellaneous other toys in search of this little guy.

As I was searching through the boxes, an old familiar sound danced around my ears. The sound of my hand sweeping through an immense mound of resin toys, pushing them out of the way in hopes that I could find "The Piece" I was looking for. Except rarely does one actually ever find the one piece. But along the way, as in many days gone by, I found many other interesting things....Lego pants, light sabers, body-less heads, hats, hair, arms......teeny tiny pieces of toys that are always buried along the edges of the boxes. I wonder why that is? Some derivative of Newton's Laws of Gravity?? Newtonian Laws of Legos....yes, I like the way that sounds....

We did not find Luke. But, I did pick out every Lego Person and body part I had come across, and decided to make them my collective Lego Army. Even after assembling the troops, I continued to search through those boxes. This time to help build a Lego house. Once again, I was greeted by the sound of Legos gently clinking together as I pushed through in search of "skinny" pieces to build the walls.

That sound is so familiar to me - and it was so surprisingly comforting. I can't even begin to tell you how many countless hours my brothers and I spent hovering over the giant Lego box.....searching, building and creating.....fighting over hard to find pieces (like the "waterbed" ones - or the cool Lego people)....making a huge mess and always losing pieces in the process....or following the wordless directions trying to build a cool new kit, before it was lost in the mass, never to be built step by step again.

Even as a young adult, my parents (oh, I mean, ahem. Santa) put mini-kits in our stocking, and I always loved opening it up and building it early Christmas morn'! I still have the last couple, which were a front end loader and a knight and ferocious dragon (the Medieval kits were always a favorite with me). I had them proudly displayed above my monitor in my office. To this day I don't think there is any character more cute than a Lego person. I actually enjoy watching Michael play Lego Star Wars (and hopefully Lego Indiana Jones in the future) on Wii because the little guys are sooo darn adorable!

Its not surprising to me now, when my nephew Austin gets a new set of Legos, to see my brother Kyle rush over to "Help" him build the new set. I know what he's really doing :) Reminiscing. And I can't wait until Liam gets a bit older so we can do the same!