LEGO Wars

I hate LEGOs. I step on them or kneel on them. I find them everywhere. In Every. Room. Of. The. House. Especially the tiny little studs. They are not cheap, so I can't just chuck them as I find them. I have to take the time to return them to their home, because if I don't put them all the way away, I will just step on them again at some point.

But, I just found a bunch at a garage sale and couldn't resist, because, deep down inside, I love LEGO's. Brian builds the cutest things with them. He has created a whole range of house-cleaning robots for me. (I wish they really worked!) I loved LEGOs when I was a kid. They entertain my two oldest for literally hours and hours on end. That's good creative fun.

However, they are a pain to clean up. If they are all thrown into one big bucket, that bucket gets dumped out in the search for just the right piece. Then they end up strewn from one end of the playroom to the other, and Brian cries when I make him clean. Sigh. So I bought a big organizer, completely sorted the LEGOs, but it had too many drawers. Too complicated. Finally, I settled on two 5-drawer sterilite containers and one big 3-drawer sterilite container and that was just right. I got it all organized and sorted for the kids and let them enjoy.

Everything was going well until clean-up time. I was having an event at my house and needed the LEGO's cleaned up. It was the only job I asked my kids to do. Instead of being nice little children, they ran around like hooligans. I asked them nicely. I even explained the dire situation to them. It did not work. So, I grabbed a bag and tossed all the loose LEGO's in it (all the while thinking huffily of the various consequences that I could inflict). I took the boxes and bag and shoved them into the toy closet and re-locked it. (Yes, I keep it locked. The kids only get out a few toys each week and they can exchange for others when they clean the playroom. Otherwise, they dump everything and it is too daunting for them to clean. Really, it's for their own good.) Now, the closet has been getting a little unorganized and was on my list of projects, so I wasn't able to find a great place to put they LEGO's, but I shoved 'em in, and got back to work on my event.

About an hour into things, I heard a crash from the playroom. The entire shelf had tipped over, dumped the entire top 2 shelves off, including entire buckets of blocks and cars, and, to my even greater horror, every drawer with the remaining organized LEGO's. Now every LEGO was completely dumped out and would need to be reorganized again by scratch. This is not a quick and easy task. I know, because I did it twice before. What's more, everything fell in front of the closet door, so I can't even open it more than a couple inches.

Needless to say, the kids have been without toys, except a few stragglers that had been avoiding the closet by hiding under couches and beds. Any straggling LEGO's have been quickly incarcerated in LEGO jail with no bail.

I can definitely say that I have lost this battle, but we will see who will win the war!