DeLappenings: Distancing Day 20: I Can’t Let Go Of The LEGOs!

So...this morning, Little Man requested assistance with rebuilding one of his LEGO creations that endured an unfortunate accident.

Basically, this coolio, three-part Avengers tower of his was accidentally decimated when Chica was giving him a piggy-back ride in the playroom last week and they crashed down into it.

Whoopsies.

And today just happened to be the first, non-school day that allowed us to divert attention to the reassembly.

Little did I know when I agreed to help that I was stepping into this:

Oye.

Basically...Little Man has a lot of LEGOs.

And he doesn’t just build them and set them aside, he actually plays with them (which is great).

So certain little bits sometimes fall apart, and end up in a collect-all basket that’s in his bedroom. And these were the dumped contents of said basket:

I mean, again...OYE.

All the odds and ends and extras and fallen-off pieces of about 8-10 assembled LEGO kits.

And this was the big bad structure we had to reassemble:

Now, I’m happy to report that about 85% of the pieces we needed (that died during the piggy pack ride) were kept together in a ziploc baggie. But the other 15% required us to sift through the massive pile of odds and ends!

Not at all surprising that it took me most of the day (off and on a few times) to finally get the dang thing put back together, and I really, really, really hope we don’t have to do this again, ha.

But all that said...going through this exercise today reminded me to share a li’l bit about my state of mind about a week or 10 days ago, and something, in particular, that was bothering me.

At that point (early days of March), we’d already been out of the school routine and pretty much social distancing for three weeks, when you factored in Spring Break.

And, yeah, sure, we were getting in a pretty good groove with all the change, but there was one major thing I had no solution for, within the parameters of our “new normal.”

And that was finding one-on-one time with my boy.

Because prior to all of these stay-at-home orders, Little Man was in preschool only two days a week, and the other three, he was home with me while his sisters were at school.

And though I’m a Mama who birthed three kiddos in 3.5 years, so I’m accustomed to not having much alone time with each kiddo—especially during the summers—Little Man just happens to be the youngest and the last to join the elementary school wagon. It’s just a simple happenstance of birth order (just as Chica got some time with me before the others were born).

So it was a bit strange to go from all that time together, to hardly any at all.

And the other compounding factor is that the girlies currently require a lot more devoted attention, because their schooling is naturally a bit more demanding than Little Man’s. So not only did he and I lose our time together, but what little time is left has been slightly skewed in favor of the girlies.

So...booo.

It was a bit of an adjustment, especially since we had no warning for all of this, so I had to get my head wrapped around the shift. And more importantly, figure out how to compensate for it.

Enter...LEGO fun!

It’s been no secret at all on this here blog that Little Man and I have spent a ton of quality time over the past few months building LEGOs.

I even posted a few times about our “indulgence” routine of having iHOP breakfast dates, coloring and talking, going to Target to find a fun, new LEGO kit, and then going home to spend hours listening to music and building together.

For awhile, I worried that I was moving a bit past indulging something that we really enjoyed together and into the spoiled territory, but now, I could not, not, not be more grateful for that amazing, quality time together.

I mean, truly, it will be a solid six months at best, before this distancing has passed and we make it through summer and into a new school year (God willing). So it will be quite some time before I have an opportunity for a one-on-one day with my boy like that. So now, I’m able to look at those devoted LEGO days as the gift that they were at the time.

But I’ve also realized that I have to work little bits of quality time (with all the kiddos) into the chaos that is our new normal—for my sanity and theirs.

So during our one, weekly grocery run last weekend, when I spotted this LEGO kit, I knew it was the perfect thing to grab and bring back a little of those old feelings of happy, building and connecting time. :)