Human Bean Soup

If there’s only one thing my kids take away from this whole

‘life-is-cruel-and-Mom-says-a-lot-of-stuff-to-ease-my-journey-through-the-murky-mire-of-adolescent-confusion’

I hope they will hear my sing song voice still echoing through their brain chambers,

like the eternal shrieking banshee that I am, calling

“Be yourself!”

Because, I know if they embrace who they are the rest will follow.

I think they are starting to get it.

If

The message:

Translation:

I love my sisters.

They are my best friends.

They are-

the keepers of my secrets,

the harbingers of  my wishes,

the sculptors of my fondest memories,

the faces I see when I close my eyes to dream,

the warm, cozy blanket around my heart.

They are-

the company I will keep

as long as this world still hangs among the stars,

as long as the universe still resonates with life,

as long as the embers of my soul still glow,

as long as

forever.

Dear Sisters,

This is for you

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V

After 13+ years of raising boys (and some girls too) there has been one constant and unmerciful poltergeist of my child rearing career which will undoubtedly haunt me to my grave, and quite possibly beyond:

Legos

I’ve made a comprehensive list of ways in which this seemingly harmless and cheerfully colored rainbow of  miniature building fun has interfered with my normal routine and subsequently become the boss of me.

Here they are:

1. ALL the money

Those tiny plastic bricks no kid can live without are apparently worth their weight in gold. This phenomenon, which I will never understand, is responsible for a long chain of other problems which have all allied with each other into an enormous army pledged to destroy my sanity.

Other problems resulting from the astronomical market value of Legos include,

a. Every Christmas for the last 10+ years of my life roughly half of the entire gift purchasing budget is designated for Legos. How could it not be? Since NO kid can live without Legos, and since each individual Lego brick is worth approximately $5 (which does not account for specialty or limited edition pieces) the thoughtful parent will spare no expense on his/her little future engineering darlings. Somebody has GOT to think of the children.

b. Thanks to Legos I can no longer just sweep or just vacuum a floor. Instead I must be always vigilant lest I send one of those precious plastic gems to the place where toys go to die- forever.

For this reason I am sentenced to spend all the days of my life sifting through and plucking from the piles of crumbs and dirt and hairballs and rancid bits of last night’s dinner- these-

and these (which are each about the size of a grain of rice and have an uncanny way of camouflaging with EVERY surface),

and these, including any or all of their individual, microscopic, removable body parts and accessories-

and, of course, there are the individual bricks which are always artfully strewn about the house like little trails of soldier ants hunting for a picnic. Always.

Why? Why must this be my problem? Why must I feel pangs of guilt whenever I am tempted to just sweep it all up and throw it in the garbage? Should the children not be responsible for their own precious belongings?

No.

Because, Legos are money.

And children do not care about money.

c. The good makers of the Lego empire will NEVER stop creating new and fabulous products representing all the latest fads in juvenile entertainment. Therefore, the good parents (me) of Lego addicts (my kids) will never stop depositing their hard earned wages directly to the Bank of Lego.

d. If your kid wants a Lego set there is a 104% chance it is the ONLY thing he/she has EVER wanted in his/her ENTIRE life. There is also a very distinct possibility that whichever set it is that strikes your child’s fancy (this week) will cost you somewhere in the price range of fifty to one billion dollars. Now, ask yourself, who are you to deprive a child of his/her lifelong dreams? What would Jesus do? You must buy Legos.

e. It is never enough. They will never have all the Legos, even if at any given time they literally have all the Legos, because they will NEVER stop coming. You will never escape this nightmare.

f. When I walk into my kids bedroom and that giant tub of brightly colored plastic currency catches my eye, my soul is flooded with visions of fancy cars and mansions and European vacations that I will never have  because those sweet, sweet little bricks will NEVER be worth anything to anyone else. So, even if I snapped and decided to exchange our silo full of Legos for actual currency I would get a big fat- nothing. How does that work? ALL the monies = NONE of the monies.

But the children are so happy! Right?

Wrong

Which brings us to our next Lego problem:

2. Tears and tragedy.

So, you spent one billion dollars on that amazing Lego set your kids has wanted his WHOLE ENTIRE life and now your kids is SO SO HAPPY! And you are the best parents ever. Oh, he’s gonna build that thing so fast and look at it and fantasize about being one of those tiny lego people in his tiny lego world and he’s gonna tell all his friends to come look at his sweet new lego thing and they will all be so impressed and he will be the most popular kid in the neighborhood – SO MUCH HAPPINESS! Until…little Timmy trips and crashes into his spectacular lego creation and now the pieces have scattered to the four corners of the earth and you will never- in a thousand years- NEVER find them all. Now little Timmy is devastated. He has never felt heartache and longing like this before. His weeping soul will never be complete after this crushing blow. And no man or woman on this earth can soothe his festering wounds. So, you buy him more legos and the cycle begins again. Now you have your very own silo filled with millions upon millions of random lego pieces which will never again serve their original purpose. Millions.

Fear not! They still have a purpose. Oh, yes! Your kid will delight in the daily ritual of dumping the ENTIRE cache of tiny rainbow bricks onto the floor and watching them tumble like crashing waves on a stormy sea to the far reaches of your home. And, you….will never learn.

3. Pain.

Bare feet + Lego bricks = Daggers of searing pain.

I live in fear.

Enough said.

4. Danger.

Babies like to eat tiny things. Legos are tiny things and I have babies. Also, approximately none of my big kids are aware of the consequences (such as death) which can arise should a baby eat a tiny plastic toy thereby making it my soul responsibility to monitor the life or death situation posed by the presence of legos. I am a BIG fan of this particular nuisance.

Legos

So….I’ve been thinking…maybe if my kids were into creating incredible and spectacular works of art such as this,

or this,

or maybe this,

or how about this?

Oh my gosh! Look at THIS!

Holy CRAP that’s amazing! And ALL out of Legos!

So yeah, if my kids were building sculptures of famous people and city scapes from that treasure trove of tiny, annoying, frustrating, dangerous, deadly, semi precious rainbow bricks- perhaps it would begin to soften the edges of my Lego scorn.

He kids, if you love me, stop dumping and start creating!

-Pablo Neruda

Sonnet XVII

Missing you more than ever.

Georgie saw one of these in the store and immediately declared,

“I’ll be needing that.”

I asked her if she even knew what it was and she replied,

“Ummmm….yep. I know what it does…”

Well, what did you think it was for?

After all, a few muddy tears never hurt anyone.

There it is.