Before I forget: I submitted this post about Eric to the Carnival of Family Life, all the entries to which can be found over at Adventures in the 100 Acre Woods.
All right then, on to other things.
Here’s an example of my expert parenting acumen:
Lately there’s been a tornado of Legos that has taken over our house. Nathaniel assures me that “everybody” else has Legos, specifically Star Wars Legos. Not wishing that his tender psyche be bruised by his Lego-lack, and since it’s been, what, more than 60 days since Christmas, I saw fit to spend some hard-earned dollars at the Lego website.
Those little plastic suckers are expensive!
So now we have (as I informed the children) enough Legos For a Lifetime: a set of at least 700 in a large plastic bucket (have I ever mentioned how much I abhore plastic?), plus a special limited-edition (I am such a sucker) Star Wars spaceship thing, complete with a Princess Leia (among other figures, or “mini-figs” according to eBay, not that I would know) and her detachable cinnamon-bun hair (which has since been rescued from the floor of the school bus; you don’t want to know the details).
And Nathaniel and Serena disappear every afternoon into one of their rooms to manipulate these little plastic things.
Don’t get me wrong: I love Legos (when did they get so small??). I had Legos as a kid, played with them about 4 times a year, and couldn’t wait until Jess got old enough for them so I could play some more,
…..BUT…..
1. They’re plastic. Have I mentioned my aversion to plastic?
2. They’re so damn small!!
3. Chokable. Not that Eric puts things in his mouth (except food; he’s rather partial to that).
4. But still! So small! And vacuumable!
5. And, the Obsession Thing.
Yes, my older son is slightly OCD.
(I think he might have got it from me, not that I have, you know, rituals or anything, but I have been known to like things a certain way.)
So he left the Star Wars spaceship out on the coffee table the other day, well within Eric’s reach. (Did I mention that this thing has like 4,103 pieces and took him three hours to put together?)
Naturally, Eric thought it would be fun to play with it. He didn’t hurt it. Much. But in Nathaniel’s haste to get it away from Eric and safely back upstairs, it got dropped.
That wasn’t good for it, apparently.
It’s now in, shall we say, several pieces. More pieces than it was in before. Pieces that are not easily identified as being from one part or another.
Nathaniel was, shall we say, disappointed about this.
Rather.
So my parenting response? “If you’re going to be so upset about it, maybe we should put it away for awhile.”
Good, eh?
[Yes, he got the hug too. A big one.]
[tags] carnivals, Legos, frustration, millions of tiny pieces, parenting acumen[/tags]
March 15th, 2007 at 12:45 am
Your parenting response is so typical ! And usually they never work, do they? My three-year old is obsessed with a website called uptoten and sometimes when she is unable to play a game, she gets so frustrated that I always threaten her with “No more Boowa Kwala for you, if you are going to get THAT frustrated”. But, she is back at it in half-a-day !
Great site.