Legos

Legos are so cool.  They have provided hours upon hours of play for my 10 year old son.  They span the ages, it is something my husband and I don't mind playing with him.  They span the sexes, my daughter and son will play with them together and both have fun.

My love for Legos also comes with a hate.  The hate of organizing them.  I know I am not alone in this.  I know because all the ideas that come up on Pinterest every time I go on this quest to organize the Legos.  Pinterest has some fabulous ideas, but none that seem to be realistic.  Honestly, my idea is create a Shop Vac for Legos.  Something that can suck them up, then sort them by size and while I'm inventing-have it sort by color too!  Wouldn't that be awesome.  A quick way to pick up all those pieces, and they'd all be quickly sorted.

So even though the Lego Shop Vac is still in prototype (haha) I decided for the hundredth time I'd  try again and organize my son's Legos.  We were a little out of control in his room and I just couldn't take it anymore (plus I love tucking him in at night and I was always stepping on that one tiny Lego...we all know what that feels like- D#*@^!.

This is on a good day after he had already "cleaned up" his Legos.  I love how Willis is looking at the mess, he doesn't like it either, it hurts those puppy paws to step on the Legos too : )  

See the hazard if you are trying to navigate this at night... plus there was always way more Legos on the floor.

I found something that will appease me for now, and the biggest part is I have had to change my mind set.  It's just going to be messy. It's just going to be messy.  It's just going to be messy. It's just going to be messy. (excuse the repetition, I need to make that my mantra for now until it sticks in my head) I'm hoping with this new method it won't be messy on the floor, instead messy on the bottom bunk....

I put his bunk bed back together and used the bottom as a Lego table...

I just went to take some pictures of the "new" method and it already looks to be a fail.... Legos on the floor.  It's just going to be messy, it's just going to be messy, it's just going to be messy, it's just going to be messy.....

Value in the Ordinary

A few years ago..okay over a decade ago when I was working at a venture capital firm I was sitting at the table with all the partners.  One of them mentioned that Hilary Clinton was receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award- I couldn't help but tiff to myself.  One of the partners looked at me and in a somewhat condescending way asked if I knew anyone else who should receive it.  For those who know me, you know I don't like conflict or even the hint of it.  But without hesitation I said my mom. The partner continued (I think he was getting a kick out of this) by asking what made my mom so great compared to Hilary.  I listed all the stuff that was great about my mom: she raised 6 amazing kids (hehe), she loved people that were hard to love (not talking about any of her kids of course), she gave service to many people (again, the ones that weren't easy to serve), she put up with my dad and his projects, she did the daily things moms do to keep their kids happy, she worried about us, she kept us safe and taught us to be good people- I owe any goodness I have to my fabulous mom.

My sister (Lisa), my mom and I

The look on the partner's face was priceless.  He seemed, for a moment, to get it.  There is incredible value in the ordinary.  We live in a digital age so every extraordinary thing someone does is out there to share on Facebook, blog about (I do see the irony in this being a blog post, but it isn't my point...) , take pictures of etc...  what about the moments that aren't that extraordinary?  Are they of value if they aren't extraordinary or documented on Facebook?  The answer is YES, yes, yes and YES!  

We all have great value and purpose.  At times it is hard to see it through the mundane things of life, but those "things" add up daily to greatness and value. Would you rather be given a penny and double it for 31 days or be given $50K on the first day?  At first glance a penny vs. $50K is a no brainer, but as most of you know that after 31 days of doubling your penny you would have $10 million.  It's the power of compounding.  Daily things add up to be of greater value and worth than those fleeting big moments. So make the most of the daily.

Pinewood Derby

**Technically our Pinewood Derby was weeks ago.  I wrote this but didn't edit it until now, so it's a few weeks behind... 

Where to start on this subject???  As a kid I remember going to the Cub Scouts Pinewood Derby and watching my brothers participate.  It was so exciting and the scouts LOVED it, heck I loved it.  My son is in scouts, he has been going on 3 years.  This is the first year we got around to making the car....

Making the car was an interesting experience.  With Jay's travel schedule and our procrastination it ended up being something I had to help Aaron with (poor, poor kid).  It consisted of a lot of convincing Aaron it was worth it to make the car, arguing with him about doing his best and not being sloppy, me trying not to take over and just do it all (which I am pretty sure a lot of the dads did...just saying a 4th grader can't paint as good as I saw some of those cars) and doing research online by watching youtube videos (which we found out later were out dated- using pennies for weights was so years ago).

I know I have strong opinions about every kid doesn't need a trophy, but I will say when it is your kid not getting the trophy it is a little hard.  It's not that I want him rewarded for something he didn't do, it just hurts my mommy heart a little to see his slumped shoulders, and head down as his car consistently came in 4th in each heat (out of 4...).  Although I did threaten talk to him before the derby about working on his best sportsmanship ( I had a feeling our car wouldn't do so great, especially since our wheels weren't are straight- ahhh poor Aaron).   He did perk up and ended up having fun...until they handed out certificates to all the boys.  So any boy that didn't get a trophy they gave them a certificate with a "unique" award.  I was laughing before they even got to him because they would have to be pretty creative to come up with something for his car.   They called his name and he got.... "the best 5 cent car".... the look on his face.  He came up to me and said they were being rude -he thought they meant it looked like it only cost 5 pennies but I quickly explained they were talking about the 5 pennies we had glued to the back and bottom of the car.

Best 5 Cent Car!  

It was an interesting experience, seeing how into it the dads got, I heard more than one dad say, "I hope to get better than 3rd this year".... I kind of wanted to correct them and say, you mean you hope your SON gets better than 3rd. haha, but really I had some stake in it as well.  I wanted to get better than 4th on each of the heats, I mean I put some sweat, tears and stress into that dang car.

Cheers to a fun, well organized night!  Aaron already has his idea for his car next year.  Should we start on it now so that the night of weigh in next year we aren't frantically finishing his car.