Firsts

The Real Reason I had Kids Was to Play Legos as an Adult

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I knew that my parents had a bunch of old toys of mine. In general I was vague on the details of what I had. There were matchbox cars and G.I. Joe’s. There were also possibly some Star Wars figures and other action figures. Beyond that I really wasn’t clear on what exactly survived childhood to get put in storage. Out of all those toys however I knew that my parents had kept a large cache of Legos. The reason I knew they still existed was at some point (I think when Zachary was old enough to play with them) my dad unsealed the box that I sealed up when I must’ve been 14 or 15 years old. I remember that because I sealed the box with a completely built Lego SDF-1 from Robotech. My dad mentioned that when he opened the box there was something built inside. He also mentioned they immediately took it apart before starting to play with the Legos. I was sad that he didn’t at least take a picture of it since I was curious how the model survived over the years. If it was intact I would’ve been really cool to have kept it since how often do you get to keep something you built when you were a kid and have it show up decades later?

The story about my SDF-1 being dismantled reminded me I had Lego and as of around 2010 it still existed. Ever since I knew we were going to have kids I was excited to have the opportunity to play with Legos again. We have these mega blocks that the girls played with ever since Teagan was small. We held off on the Duplo’s. I am now glad we made that decision since we can jump right into Legos. Teagan is the right age for it. We are also trying to train Amelia not to put anything in her mouth. Other than her finger I think she’s been pretty good about that.

When the topic came up a few weeks ago I asked my mom if she could get out the box of Lego and bring it over to our apartment when she got the chance. I was pleasantly surprised about a week ago when after my mom came back from the beach with Amelia that I had a box waiting for me on my desk.

We could not start playing with them right away however since they’ve been in storage for quite some time. It was visibly apparent they needed cleaning. I hand cleaned a few of the large pieces and went through the rest of them to see what we could give the girls and what we would need to clean further. Last week as I was cleaning them the girls were both fascinated in them. I ended up having to move my sorting session from the kitchen to the playroom floor so the girls could immediately start playing with what little amounts of Lego I declared clean and ready for use. At first session the girls were engaged for about a complete our before we had to stop and clean up for bedtime. Finding torsos and legs for all the Lego people was a priority for both girls. I was surprised how many we were able to find.

Over the first weekend we had the Legos MC brought out a bag we bought when Teagan was a baby. This bag was special because you could spread the bag out on the floor and play with stuff on it. When you were done and you wanted to clean up all you do is pull on the cord of the bag and everything stores away very easily. The bag is very big so both girls could easily play on the work surface that it creates when opened up. It was a genius idea to use for our Legos. I have a feeling may have been in MC’s mind the whole time when she bought that thing in 2012.

MC bought a few boxes of 300 piece Lego kits to give as gifts for birthday parties. It is a starter kit with lots of basic size blocks. We were having so much fun we decided to use one kits of blocks for us to add to our collection. MC gave them to the girls Sunday. Before we did I had the realization that as much is we have a lot of Lego we have a lot of oddly shaped pieces. That is because what’s left is an amalgamation of several playsets that I had when I was a child. There’s left over pieces of the moon lander playset. There were also pieces of a gas station, fire station, and police station. Is also a boat from something but I can’t remember that very well other than the boat itself.

I think both mornings this weekend the girls played for almost an hour with the Legos and again for a little while in the afternoon. Yesterday I came home and our babysitters son was there for the day and he built stuff with all the Legos a little bit of Amelia’s help. Before bedtime the girls and I continue to play with what he had built and I built them rocket with two boosters on them. We must’ve played for about 45 minutes before we had to go brush teeth.

So far I’ve seen both girls play with the lego men and the accessories that come with them. They’ve made cars, and a boat. They’ve also just been generally fascinated. Hoping that this turns into a long-term hobby they enjoy. For now I’m just enjoying that they’re happy with something that I enjoyed so much as a child. I’m also pretty pleased to be a will to play with some of it myself not have a really good excuse.

The W Sisters and the Story of Watching Star Wars For The First Time

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Saturday I got a box of old toys from my mom that she had been storing for me.  Now that she gave me my lego’s earlier in the week she wanted to clean house and give me the rest of the toys she had of mine.  I was happy to take them.  Last night I started introducing some of them to the girls. There were some new matchbox cars as well as some small matchbox car sized fighter jets. Among the stuff was also my old metal star destroyer and the millennium falcon. I explained that the millennium falcon is the ship that Chewbacca flies in.  The girls are both into Chewbacca so that got some interest.

Yesterday morning the girls were talking about either the millennium falcon or Chewbacca when MC suggested I watch Star Wars with them.  We needed a distraction while she cleaned a bit around the house. I had wanted to introduce them to star wars the actual movies for a few weeks now. I had previously showed them the trailers of most of the movies and we read the little golden books a bunch of times.  That is how they started liking Chewbacca so much.

As a purest we started off watching A New Hope. We watched about half of the movie. We stopped when they found out the princess was in the Death Star with Han & Luke. That was over an hour for them and it was plenty. I was glad that neither of them got too scared.  There were some scenes that Teagan got a little bit scared but handled it a lot better than she did with finding Nemo last year.  The asked a bunch of questions like they do with any video or book however I think they liked it.  Teagan did continue to mention Star Destroyers periodically throughout the day so that is a good sign.

Next up is to finish the movie and then hopefully move on through the first trilogy.  After that I need to figure out how to introduce them to Doctor Who without scaring them.

T’s First Ice Cream Cone

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We have been bad parents up until today.  We have kept T in a bubble and not introduced her to ice cream cones.  She has had cake and cookies and even ice cream but never the cone.  Today we sought out Haggen Das and corrected that discrepancy.  By all accounts chocolate ice cream on a cone was a hit.

Amelia and I on the other hand had frozen yogurt.

The Story of T’s First Bed

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T has been able to climb into Amelia’s crib for a while now.  For whatever reason she doesn’t do it often and she hasn’t been able to get out on her own.  We caught her on video doing it one day with our baby sitter who was supposed to find her playing in the crib after going to look for her.  When that happened we knew our days of having a crib for T were numbered.  Over the summer we were at my in laws and T climbed out of the pack and play and it was very challenging to get her to sleep now that she knew how to get free.  When that happened we knew she would get out of her crib soon.  Surprisingly more months went by and T was happy in her crib.  She would climb into Amelia’s crib sometimes but typically would just say “uppie” her word for up please when she wanted to go into the crib.  Oddly I would see her trying to climb into her crib every now and again but I don’t recall her ever getting in on her own.  MC and I didn’t complain because having her in a crib was much easier than the alternative of a free range toddler once she got a toddler bed.

Flash forward to last Saturday (24-January) I walked into the girls room to let T out after a time out.  Her room is typically her time out location since we can close the door and let her get some alone time.  I opened the door and to my surprise I see T horozontal holding on to the top of her crib.  Her leg was caught between the bars of the crib and she was about to fall.  I grabbed her and got her down.  At that moment I thought ok, she has outgrown her crib.  I went to the video to see what she was doing prior to me walking in.  I saw that she had actually climbed into the crib and was playing around and then got stuck as she was climbing out.  That sealed the decision that T needed a bed and not a crib.  My sister told me once the story of how my oldest niece got out of her crib and the recounted how she did it.  At that moment my sister knew  it was time for a bed and got one that day.  I had a feeling for a while I would have the same revolution one day and that day was yesterday.  Luckily the cribs that my mom bought for us are convertible into toddler beds.  Before nap time we got some allen wrenches and took off the front crib bars.  It was surprisingly easy to do.  We then rolled up a towel and put it under the bed sheets by the open end of the bed.  We read that this should help prevent T from rolling out of the bed.  We then got her a pillow.  T was excited for her new bed.

Excitement didn’t get her to nap in the bed though.  As expected she ran around a bit but didn’t nap.  We took her out after an hour.  At bedtime she didn’t wander around that much and eventually went to bed.  It wasn’t too bad but i think she was tired from not napping.

This week she did nap most days.  There were a few nights where she would be calling us at the door before she went down to sleep but so far not any outrageous drama.  We are thankful for that but T is generally good.  A on the other hand I don’t know what to expect but we have hopefully a year to go with her before we find out.

T Standing on Her Own

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Sometime in the past week or so T started pulling herself up to a standing position.  She would try before and we would help her do it but within the past week she has been doing it much more frequently and totally by herself.  it is pretty cool to see her mastering a new skill.

She is also able to sit back down with some difficulty but she can do it.  M saw on a parents news group people saying their babies had trouble doing that for a while so at least we hopefully dont have to keep going into her crib to sit her down once she figures out how to do that in there.  Please no one tell T that she can do that.  She hasn’t figured out she can stand up in her crib yet.

She has been teething a lot recently.  Drool is everywhere but at lest she has 4 teeth showing now.  Two on top and two on bottom.  If I didnt see them I would hear her grinding them all the time.  Apparently that is her latest play time activity.  It sounds like it would hurt a lot but my dad said it doesn’t and she is testing out her new weapons.

T Sitting Up Consistantly

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It’s T’s 9 month birthday and she decided to start consistently sitting up.  I say consistently because before today she would sit up every so often.  Today she is doing it often and what seems like deliberately.  It is funny she is doing this on her 9 month birthday because she started rolling over almost exactly on her 6 month birthday after randomly rolling over for a while before then.

T Sitting Up?

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She has been sighted sitting up now and again but it is not a regular thing.  Like rolling over when she did it every so often we are waiting to see when she will just start sitting up on her own constantly.