Legos

Dear John,

I love Legos.  A lot.

Possibly more than any adult woman should ever admit to in public.

But I love them.  I think it's fun to build things with them and I love to collect them.

I personally own a lot of different sets and series: castle sets, adventure sets, Old West, Harry Potter.

Recently, your dad and I put together all of those sets and have them out on display with a serious "no touching" rule for children.  It's unfair, I know.

Even more recently we got your dad's childhood Lego collection: more castle, pirates, town and space.  We are assembling those and while you and your sister get to play with each set the evening it is made (just like you did when we build mine), after that, it's off limits.

Really unfair, I know.

So Lego came out with two new sets: Lord of the Rings and Monster Hunters.  I expected to be taken with the Lord of the Rings sets, but it was the Monster Hunters that really grabbed my attention.  Lego has done a lot of sets in the past ten years that go with various other media... the Harry Potter sets (which I own and love), Star Wars (which I am, in retrospect, sorry I spent money on), Indiana Jones and some others.  As much as I love my Harry Potter sets, though, I find the others much more charming.  I own several of the "adventure" sets which were Indiana Jones before they got the licensing and I think the adventure stuff is neater than the actual Indiana Jones sets.

So the Monster Hunters appealed to me in the same way... classic and timeless and not all that "merchy."

I'm telling you all of this because I knew I was going to get these sets.  But when I saw how you loved to play with your parents' Lego collections, when I think about you, as an adult, looking back with nostalgia on your own childhood, I wanted you to have a series that you would remember as your very first introduction to the world of Lego.

So while your sister had a sleep-over with her friend Abigail, you and I played with Legos.  I built the Crazy Scientist and His Monster (9466) and you played with it.  Then we did the same with The Werewolf (9463).  The Werewolf was an early birthday present from Aunt Dani and Aunt Kathi to me.  The Crazy Scientist I bought for myself.  But unlike all of the other sets I own, these are not on a display shelf out of your reach.  They live in the playroom and while you seem to like having them assembled, you would be well within your rights to take them apart.  The joy of building them and starting a collection of them was mine; the right to play with them as you wish is yours.

The next day, we took some of your left over birthday money and got The Mummy (9462).

So far, you have remained pretty interested in the start of your Lego collection.  Your sister has her Lego Friends sets and the two play together strangely well.  I helped both of you to see that the famous Monster Fighter Ann Lee (from the Mummy) used to live in a quiet suburban neighborhood with her father Stan, her mother, Madam, and her sisters Merry and Sissa.  Ann always knew she wanted to be a Monster Fighter, but her father wanted her to stay home and be safe.  And so your sister played with the Lee's neighbors and you found the one Lego Ninjago we own (I think he was a promo) and decided that with his weapons and hockey mask, he too was a Monster Fighter and he became Ann's mentor.  Or something like that.

We'll be collecting the rest of the Monster Fighters eventually.  They are all for you.  And one day you'll look at them, and their release date, and you'll marvel that you started playing with Legos when you were only three years old.  But you'll have all of the sets and pieces to prove that they were yours.

Well, all except for the Haunted House (10228).  I have to tell you that's going to be mine.

But you can play with it sometimes.

Love,
Mom