Just a Lazy Sunday

    Our weekends are normal - not filled with t-ball or soccer games unless we are going to go watch my niece or nephew play. Our kids enjoy sports but none of them have had an undying love to join the organized sporting world. It's a chilly, rainy morning so it's a perfect pajama day if you ask me. Normally on these kinds of days we will find the kids doing a multitude of things like puzzles, Lego's, board games, reading books, chasing the dogs, playing dress up, and on the more rare occasion watch TV.

    While Missy baked in the kitchen I took to the couch. Although my figure might say differently, I rarely watch TV. In a given week I might find myself watching TV a total of two to three hours a week. Today I decided to watch a riveting forty-five minutes of Auction Hunters. I found myself on the couch shrouded by Dylan, Gabby, the dogs and Evey when she needed a fix of tormenting the dogs by "petting" them. Cody and Trevor were playing in their room and Lucy was in hers. With six kids in the house we welcome the chance for individual and group play. 

    As the final numbers were coming in on how much money was made by selling a gun, some robots and a lot of useless crap, Cody walked up to me with his finger in his mouth. He had left a Lego space ship on the couch next to me while Dylanlaid over the top of me and Toby snuggled behind me. I thought he was back toretrieve it and then back to the room of noise and destruction, also referred to as the boys room. As he grabbed his spaceship I noticed a wet spot on his pajama shirt. I focused a bit more on it and noticed it wasn't water. At this time he pulled his finger from his mouth and stood there staring at the tip of his finger. It had a slight red color to it. He licked it off and shoved it back in his mouth. I noticed it was in an odd location however. It's not often a child who tries to brush his teeth at mock ten to avoid the brush from touching his gums will shove a finger between his lips and gums. This behavior caught my eye and was warranted for a closer look. I asked Cody if he was alright which he responded with, "yes" as he looked at the tip of his finger again. He then held it out to show me and said, "I think it red." 

    I grabbed him and pulled him closer to try to get a closer look. I asked him to open up so I could see in and he just smiled. The red teeth that peeked out from behind those soft cute lips was enough for me to ask Dylan to climb off of me for a second. I moved closer to Cody and told him to relax his jaw so I could see better. Apparently that means close your mouth and try to get away. Missy threw a paper towel my way and I shoved it inside to see how much blood I could soak up. As a doctor, all-be-it not a real doctor in some peoples mind, I don't waist time withgentle antics. So I grabbed his lip, pulled it away from his face and jammed that towel up in there. He didn't make a noise, he didn't even try to escape. When I pulled the towel out it was red with blood and had a good amount on it. I tried to ask Cody what happened and all he could do was smile and say I don't know. He was wiggling his lower body and acting like he was hiding something. I pressed him again and I got the same thing. I called for Trevor so that I could interrogatehim next. If Cody wasn't talking Trevor surely will. I asked Trev what happened and he told of a story where there were fights and battles between good and evil withing their bedroom and it was all played out with Lego's. He said he shot his Lego's at Cody and hit him, but that it wasn't in the face. I asked to see this new weapon of mass destruction and he quickly ran to get it. Upon inspection and a quick demonstration it was obvious even to a non trained eye that this was not the cause of the blood. In reality this weapon would be hard press to injure a spider if it had a direct hit on it. Each boy agreed that nothing other than the Lego weapon had been used. Cody tried to say that it was Trevor's Lego weapon that hit him and caused the blood yet Trevor responded with, "It hit him in his back." Unless we are currently in Dallas driving down Elm street in a convertible limousine I am incline to say the magic bullet is a farce, and even then I would still call bull shit. 

    I decided to take Cody into the kitchen where the light is a bit better to inspect the full damage. I sat him on the counter, tilted his head back, opened him mouth and pulled up his lip. I must say I was surprised to see the beginnings of the grand canyon within the upper gum of Cody's mouth. It was not a cut that caught me bysurprise but I did get my attention. When I called Missy over to take a look, she quickly turned away with a disgusted look on her face and said, "A warning would have been nice." Staying true to the rules and actions of the house she grabbed the camera to get a close up. We enjoy documenting our ups and downs in our house so that they might be used as a teaching aid later on to ward off a repeat incident. 

    The thing that gets me is that I never once heard him cry or get upset. I never heard a thud to signal an injury. I never heard Trevor say, "I'm sorry, don't tell Daddy." It was as if Cody got punched in the face for a wrong doing and he took it like a man. He didn't even pull away as I shoved an ice pack between his lip and gum and held it there for several minutes, and then repeated that two more times. I must say I was very proud of him and scared by him all in the same. I think I will keep an eye out for him, he's borderline crazy!!!!!!!!

If I step on one more Lego...

     For the past three years our house has been inundated with Lego's. It started with the Duplo Lego's that Dylan played with when he was just turning four. He had a few sets prior to this time but he never really had an interest. Then Grandma bought him the fire fighter set and he's been hooked ever since. The Duplo are the larger Lego's designed for younger ages so that the kids are able to handel them better. What this really means is they are hard to swallow, easy to see and heavy enough to draw some blood when thrown with the unchecked aggression of a two year old. Dylan wasn't much of a thrower of toys but I sure as hell was, and at times still am. Dylan quickly realized the Duplo sets were not as interesting as the regular size sets. I would completely agree with him in this scenario. 

    Once Dylan decided to move on to the regular size Lego's, his brother Trevor became interested. And since mister "I can do whatever my brothers do" Cody was now utilizing his sweet quiet voice to scream at his brothers for not including him in the day's activities, he was now involved as well. The Lego phenomena exploded after Jen passed away. I found myself buying sets from time to time as a way to keep my mind off of lying on the floor in the fetal position crying because I missed her so damn much. It wasn't long before each boy would receive a new Lego set on an almost monthly basis from Jen's parents, Dave and Shila. I don't think anyone would blame us for fixating on something like Lego's as a way to sooth and fill a void left by the death of their mother, but it did get a bit out of hand. 

    Month after Month the kids table in the kitchen grew more and more unmanageable due to the pile of Lego's on top of it. I bought a four drawer plastic storage container that was about three feet tall and we filled it up with all of our Lego's. Soon I had to buy another one. The kitchen was being overrun by Lego's, regular size Lego's. The trade off from the Duplo to the regular size was you needed less storage, however the pieces are much smaller and easily forgotten on the floor. I have found myself screaming obscenities because of the pain felt after stepping on a Lego piece at least fifty times. It became almost a daily ritual in our house. And truth be told I have the most sensitive feet ever. I'm the kind of guy who wears tennis shoes around the inside of the house most of the day because the floor is to hard on them. I know, I should turn in my man card right now. I don't know why they are so sensitive but that is how it has always been, so Lego's in the kitchen that I step on when letting the dogs out one last time before bed really pisses me off. 

    After Missy and the girls moved in, the Lego's went from "that's cute" to "holy hell where are all these Lego's coming from?" I had enough of the disaster zone created by the Lego's, also known as our kitchen nook. After a week long discussion Missy and I both agreed we needed the Lego's in another room. The playroom was first choice but the boys room, the girls room, the garage even the storage shed were all viable options in our minds. We searched on-line and in catalogs for ideas or even purchasable systems that would help minimise the Lego issue. The boys had their own drawer in the Lego containers where they could store their project and the other kids were not allowed to touch it. It worked well except for when Cody was around. I found him multiple times raiding his brothers drawers for pieces only later to lie to them about taking it. That became a whole other issue resulting in early bed times, missed dinners and the utilization of "the wall of shame" for his items. Yet we liked the larger storagble spaces and we were trying hard to find something that would work.

    One day Missy showed me an industrial grade tool separating system. They sell it on-line for a ridiculous amount of money. Sam's Club sells it for cheaper but it's still hundred of dollars and hundred of pounds. Funny enough we both agreed that this option was the best one to date that we had found. About a week later we decided to take the kids to Lowe's with us while we looked around to see if anything struck a cord with us on this venture.  We came up with a system using small storage bins where I would build a shelving system to hold them. I'm not the worst with power tools but I'm no Bob Vila either. At this point we are loading our cart up with about 50 of these small plastic bins. Then we came to the end of the isle and saw our new found joy. We each glance at the item and then at the other person. The look was all we needed to know this was it. It was an eight pack of bright yellow Stanley Tools sorting bins. The bins hang on a plastic piece you screw into the wall. It was perfect.

    We bought all the packs that they had which were five and we bought five large bins that matched the set. It took time to plan out the project. We needed the right space, the right size, the proper materials and equipment. I'm anal so I spent about four days drawing different configurations and ideas before we came up with what we wanted. In addition the amount of Lego's was astronomical which caused some alterations of our initial idea. At first we thought we would do a bin for each shape of each color. Yes you read that correctly. After putting that figure in our head we realized we would need about 950 different bins. That would most likely take up the space of the entire twelve foot wall almost floor to ceiling in the playroom. A bit overzealous. 

    We decided to settled on 117 small bins and 5 big bins with 4 additional bins from Ikea to hold the instruction manuals, odd pieces and mini figures. We were lucky enough to find the bins at Home Depot and we snatched them right up. The construction of the Lego unit took a few days while I had time in between pick up and drop off at school and all the other house hold duties. I worked hard at creating a pleasing piece of furniture in the house, even thought it was holding Lego's.

    After the structure was built and in place the true fun began, sorting. I had no idea of the hell that I was in for when it came to sorting. First we sorted those eight drawers by color. We emptied them into other plastic bins that we had around the house. This process took about two weeks. There were hundreds of thousands of Lego pieces. The fun days where when I was sorting and the kids would ask to help. They found it fun to grab a few pieces from the drawer and then they would try to throw the Lego in the proper colored bin. My most favorite was when Cody took half of the blue Lego's out of the bucket we had sorted them into, built some contraption he called a spaceship and then dismantled it and shoved it back in a different drawer that had yet to be sorted. We found all kinds of things too; other toys, Missy's hair bands, money and even Evey's stuff. We weren't sure if Evey did it on her own or if Cody was hiding it from her. One day I had been sorting for about two hours when Lucy walked over to me after getting home from school and she said, "wow you're still sorting that same bin?" I had been on that bin for three days so far. I immediately stopped sorting and headed straight to the fridge to get a ice cold beer and sit outside in the backyard for some fresh air. 

    After the color sorting was done it was time to move on to shape and size. I started off easy by grabbing a color with only about sixty pieces and putting it in one small yellow bin, then putting it up on the wall. I knocked out about twenty of those the first night. I was thinking this is easy now, smooth sailing here on out. Well I was full of it and I should have know it. Imagine twenty pounds of white Lego's, they don't just fall into four or six small bins and align themselves in an orderly fashion. Truth be told the whites were the last color I did. It took me two days working about two hours each day on it. We ended up with eighteen small bins and one large bin of just white Lego's. All in all the sorting took about four weeks before it was completed. Missy helped with the sorting into colors and she sorted the blue Lego's for us. It was greatly appreciated. That is until I realized the way she sorted those eight bins of blue and the way I sorted the other one hundred and nine were different. So I resorted the blue and finished the project. It was such a task that we both agree the kids should never play with them ever again so that we don't have to sort them ever again. At least we got the kitchen back, the Lego's are out of our immediate line of sight and my feet are feeling much better. On some nights I still walk into the playroom and turn on the light just to marvel at the beauty of those organized Lego's.