Posts Tagged ‘Legos’
Let Go of My Legos
As a Dad you become excited when your kids show an interest in something specific, as it gives you a little insight into their personality. While my 1-year-old has not yet shown an interest in anything specific yet, except slapping my face, my five-year-old loves pirates. I mean it’s scary how much he loves pirates. This we can trace back to a trip to the beach where we boarded a pirate ship and went out into the bay. Ever since then it’s pirates every day, all day. In fact, we now have one living with us and I can’t find the 5-year-old. But that is another story.
My 8-year-old is the Lego maniac. This started when he was 4 years old, when we bought him a small Lego Batman set for his birthday. He was so excited. I was so excited. I couldn’t wait to play with it.
After watching his uncle help him assemble it, he quickly learned how to navigate the instructions and build them himself. So for the next four years we buy Batman sets, Star Wars sets, Indiana Jones sets, Mars Mission sets, Aqua Raider sets, Agents Sets, Bionicles, Rock Miners, and Lego City sets. By now I am he is amassing a Lego Empire.
One day the 4-year-old becomes a 6-year-old. No, we didn’t skip his fifth birthday, I just thought I should get to the point. Anyway, he comes home and informs me that he wants to start a Lego Club at school. I am thrilled at the prospect of my oldest child deciding to put together such a neat program.
“So who is going to bring the Legos?” I ask.
“You are,” he tells me.
“What if I don’t?” I say, completely in control.
“I’ll probably lose all my friends and become a chainsaw killer before I graduate,” he warns.
It takes me several weeks to come to grips with the task.
Well, the Lego-buying has exacted quite a toll on our bank account. Much like “Little Boy” exacted a toll on Hiroshima. Only worse. I am forced into the dark underbelly of the Lego black market. I buy enough Legos to keep 22 energetic first through fifth graders busy with something other than going to the bathroom 38 times. I buy bins to store them in. Then I get a tractor trailer to haul the bins.
When did little pieces of plastic become so expensive to manufacture, box, and ship? While they still offer sets for less than $10, those sets are assembled in approximately 6 seconds by my 8-year-old, who then turns to me and says, “This is IT?”
We recently went to pick up a new Indiana Jones Temple of The Crystal Skull set from our local store only to find it priced around $80. While it boasts 929 pieces the model itself is neat, but not that impressive. Certainly not $80 impressive. I let the 8-year-old know that it wasn’t happening. There are lots of tears and crying. The 8-year-old wasn’t thrilled either.
So I took a look at the various Lego models out there and found the prices were just getting out of hand. In fact, I saw they released a series of houses and apartment buildings you can buy and add to Lego city. I saw the prices. Thankfully they include a mortgage application in the box.
The 8-year-old has started eyeing up the MindStorms from Lego. These robot sets are complete with sensors, servos, motors, and its own programming language, as well as a price tag so high I’m not sure I can recover from the nosebleed. They promise to turn him into a robotic engineer. If this is the case, maybe the money we spent on Legos will be worth it and he can blow off college.
Somehow I doubt it. But at least he won’t resort to chainsaws.
