My son pulls me down the stairs: “play with me Mommy, play with me!” and I relent; cut the tie on the new LEGO box and do it. Today I’ll try it with instructions and I’ll build the little scene, how hard can it be. It’s the baby steps LEGO anyway, ages 4+. It’s just my speed. We sit on the floor and I begin.
Halfway through I send my husband a text message:
“screw this shit. Now they tell me I can’t build all the stuff in the book? How can I tell what I can and can’t build once I’ve built the first thing if I don’t know what pieces I have and don’t have?”
“yeah. Can’t build them all”
“OMG FUCK LEGOS”
I’m soldiering on though, reverse engineering some things in the book based on the photos when I get the next text:
“too bad we don’t have a bin of 5000 LEGOS upstairs”

my next text to him reads: “uh, whoops. And thanks for saving me from posting a REALLY embarrassing rant on Facebook just now”
I get the bin and start back to work. An hour later I send another text:
“Can you run this errand for me on the way home? I can’t get away. I’m in the middle of a really important auto engineering project”

Meanwhile this is what playing with Jack looks like: I’m building LEGOS. Jack is watching TV, running back and forth through the pile of LEGOS on the floor. MESSING UP MY PILE. Every so often he’ll pick up something I’ve painstakingly constructed and….break it. Here are some things I said to Jack yesterday, and I’m sure I will hear these things in 20 years or so in family therapy:
“Jack! Put that down! I’m not through building it!”
“Jack! STOP IT! Your messing up the LEGOS!”
“JACK! Quit dumping the LEGOS on the floor!”
“No, you can’t play with it yet. I need to finish the house first”
I’m thinking that I should be fired from this job, really-when my husband and daughter get home and it’s a little more worth it when my daughter goes “MOMMY! You made these?” and my husband goes “awww! Your first LEGO!” and then he let me build the firetruck.
And just because I love you all so much and I just love to hear you all laugh, I’d like to share with you something I said to my husband yesterday:
“Michael! He’s breaking my firetruck!”