A Maker in the Making

Usually while I am on the treadmill at the gym I usually tune the TV to the Travel Channel or Food Network since they are adjacent on the "dial" (remember dials?). I like watching Adam Richman cheat certain death whenever Man vs. Food is on, and I think that the Barefoot Contessa has awesome dinner ideas. The Hungry Girl show is pretty good, too.

Shut up. I know how it sounds... although I really didn't consider how it probably looks to those around me until just now... It might explain the lack of eye contact and the surplus of disgusted head-shaking...

Anyway, I will pretty much watch anything to help distract me from the fact that I am on a treadmill, but one show I refuse to watch is that cooking show with the horrifying Southern lady who looks like the plus-sized offspring of a cockatiel and a half-melted candle. Even though I don't actually listen to the show – I rely on closed captioning while my MP3 player drowns out the ambient noise of the facility – actually reading “y'all” upwards of one hundred times an episode somehow makes my ears hurt.

So, while I was hoofing it on Saturday I was flipping through the channels on the TV and ran across Lego Star Wars: The Padawan Menace. At first I thought it was just a toy commercial but it turned out to be a very funny half-hour show about the mayhem that ensues when Yoda tries to take a group of younglings to the Galactic Senate on a field trip.

I got home and DVR'd it for my three-year-old. We watched it together and he loved it. Nothing for it but to put “buy Legos” on the to-do list.

Since he still had $10 left over from a Toys R Us gift certificate he got from his birthday and he has been doing especially well as school we went there to get a little something before dinner. After suffering some extremely hard lessons on what $10 can purchase (or, really, not purchase... He actually threw up his hands at one point and said “I can't buy anything!”) he picked out Lego set 7049: Alien Striker. Not a Star Wars set, but space-y and within his budget.

I said “Fine” although I was pretty worried that the 42-piece kit would be too much for him. He has plenty of Duplo blocks (which he loves) but they are easy to handle and those Lego kits can have some pretty complicated pieces as I recalled.

In retrospect, I shouldn't have sweated it. He can throw together any 48-piece jigsaw puzzle you care to give him without looking at the box top. It's 50% frustrating and 50% fascinating to watch, FWIW. In your mind you are screaming “Find the damn edge pieces first! What are you doing? Why are you starting in the middle? At least flip over all the pieces so you can find everything! How the hell are you supposed to... oh... you're done...”

Once I showed him how to “read” the instructions, he was off to the races. I only had to help him with some pieces because they were, in his words, “too slippery” (read: too small to maneuver and snap into place with weak, clumsy fingers).

“Ages 6 to 14”, eh? To that I say “Pfft!” “Pfft,” I tells ya!

Yep, I am proud. You will understand that, pride aside, I need to write this down now because Future Me won't remember this when he backs his mother's car into my truck thirteen years from now and I find myself screaming at him and accusing him of having garbage spacial skills. My memory... well, let's just say it's not getting better with age. (Sorry in advance, son).

It looks like a whole new aisle at the toy store has opened up for us... him... I mean him. I am happy about the Legos but I am not sure how I feel if he is going to get into the whole Star Wars thing. After all, I want him to be a Creator and a Doer... not a Taker or a Watcher. And, please, God, not the Star Wars Kid... Jimmydunes, I am relying on you, here... :)

Regardless of how things turn out, though, I swear to all that is holy that my kid will always know that Han shot first.