I have nothing but good things to say about LEGO, as long as we don’t discuss the price. They have been the toy of choice in my life since I myself was but an inebriated dwarf, and I love the fact that both my son and grandson are equally enamored of them. If they could remember to pick them up off the ground, I would be happier, but I suppose that I will just have to settle for an increase in their hand-eye coordination. As for the price, which I was previously hesitant to mention: the fact is that LEGO logo is a seal of quality, and Mega Bloks, much like the GoBots of the 1980’s, are a pale imitation of a superior product, and not worth the money you’ve saved in failing your children. But even Mega Bloks are within a certain range of quality; they don’t look as polished as LEGO, but at least the blocks will consistently lock together. Living in a poorer area, I’ve had the opportunity to see some of the dollar store competitors (not actually sold at dollar stores), and have been forced to lay down a rule with my wife and her friends that, though I appreciate the sentiment in their gifts to my son, I would prefer that the refrain from any plastic building set purchase that isn’t made by LEGO, as the inferior bricks always wind up getting mixed in with the LEGO, and contaminate the workmanship and destabilize my son’s creations.
It’s not my intention to run an infomercial for the best known toy in the world (although I would gladly sell out for some sweet, sweet LEGO Doctor Who (coming soon) compensation in a heartbeat), just a rebuttal to the argument my mother used to make when explaining why I wouldn’t be getting a pair of Nikes when we did our back-to-school shopping. She used to say that the only thing that you were paying for was the Name on the box that your product came in, and, to be fair, in most cases this has proven true. I personally prefer Android devices because a gnawed on Apple isn’t worth the ridiculous mark-up that comes with worshiping at the altar of Steve Jobs. That, and I’m a Seattle boy, so my evil empires of choice are Microsoft, Amazon, and Starbucks (still willing to sell out for gift cards and/or shopping spree allowances). But with LEGO, you know what you’re getting before you even open up the box, and with their licensing deals, it is a fun way to share in the same interests with your children. It sure beats having them try to explain the game of make-believe that they are currently immersed in, and the various arbitrary rules which seem to ensure that they will always win.
As for the dreaded LEGO foot puncture attack, I think the reason why the kids don’t care is fairly obvious: though they generally tend toward a more natural mode of footwear, somehow managing to lose their shoes and socks like miniature Houdinis, their mass is so much less than even the smallest of adults that it probably feels no different than stepping on the Cheerios and bits of apple that they’ve strewn about the living room as they graze throughout the day. Gravity is the toddler’s bane, and if he can barely keep himself upright, I don’t hold out much hope that he’ll manage to maintain control over the tiny bits of whatever he has shoved into his mouth and then spit into his tiny fists. Children have no concept of germ theory, and to them a floor is simply a larger and far more accessible table. Of course, tables don’t frequently continue under couches, but that’s what moms and dads are for.
I’ve said on many occasions that a toddler (and even larger children, to a slightly lesser extent) is in many ways just a drunken midget that will (hopefully) grow out of it. Their size is their fist obstacle, as they are learning to navigate a world that was built for people three to four times their size. I mean, until they build up the necessary musculature to begin to face down gravity, it’s probably for the best that they have a shorter distance to the ground. But it must be frustrating to wander through a landscape where giants can pick you up on a whim, or put the things you want far out of reach just because you threw them at someone. It was hilarious on that cartoon your mom put on, why doesn’t she think so when you try to get a laugh?
Toddlers also lack impulse control, as they bounce from couch to couch, always in search of the next ten second distraction. I think I mentioned in a previous column that the reason why time seems to pass so quickly the older that you get is merely a matter of temporal proportion and perception. When you are two years old, a minute is a much larger percentage of the life which you have lived, so when your dad asks you to play “The Quiet Game”, the best score that you can hope to get is something like thirty seconds. And when mommy says she’s going out for a smoke, and that she’ll be back in just a minute, doesn’t she know that it takes forever? So even though adults may see them as having attention spans which would be ridiculed by fruit flies, they are probably engrossed for hours at a time.
In addition to their comparably short windows of attention, their movements are often reminiscent of that guy who’s had just a couple too many drinks and then insists that he’s cool to walk the couple blocks back to the bus stop. Toddlers are in process of programming their motor skills by trial and error, and it usually means that they rarely manage to look cool. By the time that they’ve started to walk, they’ve arranged a tentative ceasefire with the earth’s ever-present downward pull, and have begun to move about by gliding forward on their trajectory toward the ground. But every now and then, some drunken private on either side will take a potshot across no man’s land, and the child will suddenly collapse as if he’s forgotten how to move. This isn’t too bad, unless he’s managed to perch himself up on the bed or next to a coffee table.
And then there is the final piece of their drunken state of being: The Curse of the Terrible Twos. A baby is immersed in language from the day that it is born (and as I’ve seen plenty of people speaking to large women’s bellies, possibly before- although I suppose that someone might just really want to know how that burrito has been holding up), and by the time they are ambulatory, they have picked up at least a couple words, if only to more effectively demand something from a specific person. But this is now the time of “no.” They have arrived at a moment of belligerence that they will never match again in life until they start doing tequila shooters. By now they know how to turn off the television when we’re watching something other than the same cartoon (literally, the same episode over and over) that they’ve decided that they want to watch today. And if we try and reason with them, they are more likely than not to huff off and make a face usually reserved for Uncle Bob about a third of the way through Christmas dinner when he realizes that no one wants to hear about Obama’s birth certificate, and how he’s actually a Secret Muslim Socialist.
Eventually, most children begin to shed this this overly passionate and unreasonable behavior in favor of new strategies which will more likely succeed in their acquisition of new toys. They begin to learn to use blackmail and rudimentary debating skills, though the premises upon which their arguments are built are often rather shaky. I don’t really have any advice to impart to parents going through this. I somehow made it through mostly intact with my son, but I’ve managed to block most of it out, and interacting with my grandson is not at all the same. I guess the best advice that I can offer is to go through this stage of a child’s life as their grandparent: you get all the I love you, man’s without having to change a single diaper.
-Tex
