On Lego, museums and the luxury of time...

A year or two ago I had this glorious experience of spending three, maybe four hours of playing Lego with Colin and Alex. We were in our basement at Harwood and I must have been enjoying one of the perks of being a teacher, another holiday, but also another chance to spend time with the kids. Our goal was to try and use every last piece of Lego we owned in order to build the biggest and best Star Wars space station the world had ever seen! And we did. Use all the Lego that is. And we did it together, with only a pee break or two, without a cross word being spoken or anyone clamoring for the TV, a video game or the need to see daylight. I don’t even think we ate.

For a dad and a parent, it was a beautiful thing on many levels. We had of course played with the Lego before, but what struck me as being so memorably joyous was the sense of unlimited time the three of us had to simply play, together. I will admit to a major numb bum and several parts of my body refusing to sit cross-legged for longer than a minute. I also remember the dizzy sort of delirium I battled while looking for a grey flat piece with only 4 nubs against our grayish, flat, nubby carpet…But my point is that we went at it for several hours without a look to the clock, a concern for a meal, or a better place any of us had to be.

I was reminded of this experience recently because Colin had to do a class presentation about Lego the other day and so the family was immersed in a lot of Lego talk, research, building and remembering. In the course of the research and planning, the little bit of Lego we have here received a fairly good workout. Just tonight, we came together again on the living room floor and started to build another, way cool space station. As the boys bickered a bit over which gun should go where, I was transported back to that time in the basement. As I picked up piece after piece and snapped them into random spots, I found myself again free of concern and wholly content to be imagining new worlds with my boys. It also reminded me of something Lint and I talked about just a few days ago…

We were back at the Melbourne Museum, trying to avoid the throngs of people that had plagued us a few short weeks ago. As it was Sunday, we had absolutely no plans and so we let the pace and places be dictated by the kids. It was a great afternoon. Things we had seen before seemed fresh and new. We discovered galleries and places we had never seen before and might not have seen this time if we had rushed through. Turning off the adult impulse to worry about time, boredom, sore feet, or the simple fact that we had been here before allowed Lint and I to see it as the kids see it; we allowed ourselves to play. As we caressed our desperate coffees in the museum café we realized that we all do better with the luxury of time.

And yet earlier today I seemed to have forgotten that lesson already. I spent an hour engaged in a serious Pokemon battle with Alex after school. It does not quite have the same appeal for me as Lego and as with most games and Alex, you need to find creative ways to try hard but be sure to lose in the end. Anyway, it was fun, especially for him, but after awhile my mind and my will started to battle it out. Could I stay for one more battle or could I beg off with “sore knees” or “bathroom break” as legit excuses? Here I was in the middle of another of those glorious parent-child-play moments and I found myself craftily planning my exit. What was I thinking? Why would I ever want it to end?

I didn’t. Deep inside I really didn’t want it to end, but I was tired of the make believe and craved the news, a drink, a website, or something more adult for my Pokemon-addled mind. Was it possible too that I was just played out? I don’t think so. I think it may have been a generational thing- whereas Lego seems to have some innate ability to make the leap across the generational divide – Pokemon cannot – and having used my limited ability to live in the world of Pikachu – my mind inevitably “went elsewhere”.

And so finally, here I am. Approaching the end of the best thing our money could ever buy – time with my kids – and I continue to make discoveries, good and bad, about myself and what’s important. I think I knew of these discoveries before, like that magic moment in the basement a few years ago, but it’s taken a full year of being presented with them every day in order to understand how so much of what happens with our children is as a direct result of what happens with ourselves. By slowing down, looking up, or putting the clock away when the Lego is out or the museum calls then we all have a better chance of living – and playing - in the moment for the first or even fifth time around!