I give my heart to Lego and Playmobil

While I understand that Jesus was born on December 25th for very powerful and world-changing reasons, I still think Christmas falls at the end of December so that little girls and boys all over the world can play with their new toys throughout the very coldest and most brutal month of the year.

January.

It is wonderful to watch Things 1 and 2 get so excited over new toys. It's definitely the age of getting that new toy high. They are three and nearly five, so they wrote their carefully-thought out letters to Santa and waited in anticipation to see if the toy they asked for would arrive under the Christmas tree.

And now my home is filled with Lego and Playmobil, companies who arguably manufacture toys with the *most* itty bitty tiny pieces per box. Although I am painstakingly trying to contain the parts (I lost track of counting the pieces once I hit six figures), there are inevitably miniature hats, stop signs, car pieces, ropes and little body pieces all over my carpet. And floor. And couches. And bathroom tile. And squished into tiny crevices all over my house.

I spend huge chunks of my day chasing after Thing 3 and trying to dislodge little tiny people from her increasingly strong jaws. It's tiring. After three weeks of Lego and Playmobil wrangling, it's gotten old.

The silver lining to all this is how entirely enamoured with the stuff the Things are. They LOVE it. They ADORE it. They have not stopped playing with it since they opened the original boxes on Christmas morning. They play with it alone. They play with it together. They have not watched TV in weeks. They rarely argue (note I said "rarely" because they are preschool-age boys and they do, indeed, fight sometimes). They genuinely want to stay home every day and play with
their "guys".

An added benefit? These toys are not CRAP, they are well-made, educational and useful toys that I feel comfortable having my children use. Playmobil is a fantastic German company that takes pride in it's craftmanship and developes high-quality and safe toys.

Now, for the most part, the Lego toys are quite advanced and are ages 5-7 or up. I'm thoroughly impressed with Thing 1's ability to follow the directions and assemble much of the pieces on his own. While Thing 2 gets easily frustrated when his "stuff" falls apart, he does quite well for a three-year-old kid. Their imaginations are soaring and I enjoy sitting and eavesdropping on their creative and animated play. I'll often catch myself grinning ear to ear and beaming with pride as I watch my two Things play so well together.

So that makes it all worthwile, right? Even picking lint-infested little tiny boots out of my vaccum cleaner . . .

And I now have two children who emphatically know what they want to be when they grow up.

Perhaps they'll go under cover as Secret Agents and fight for the better good of all mankind.

Or they might become world-wide adventurers and search for the Ark of the Covenant.

Or better yet, they might stick a little closer to home, and serve their own city fighting crime and chasing bank robbers.
The opportunities are limitless.