Snacks, and Shoes, and Legos! Oh my.

Sometimes it's the little things that just make my week. This week the little things are snacks, shoes and Legos. This weekend, after my dramatic realization that the Legos are overtaking my home and life, I told imac and Butter that we would make Lego display cases for their rooms. After they cleaned and vacuumed their rooms I took them to Home Depot and they put together these primitive cinder block bookcases for about 20 bucks each, or half the cost of a Lego kit. It was key that they do their own vacuuming, ensuring that when they heard the tell tale clickity clack of a lego piece getting sucked up into the vacuum, it would be a tragedy of their own creation. They were extra careful to prep the area on hands and knees ahead of vacuuming. "Oh well, too bad," I could say, but alas no clickity clack. They carried all the cinder blocks and boards into the house and assembled their shelves. I wished I had more manual labor for them to do. I repaired a lot of split rail fences, cleaned a lot of stalls and hooves as a kid and sometimes I wish I had more of that for them to do around here in sunny suburban Florida. Which reminds me, how did I end up here again?

My work shoes have been getting me down lately, so I replaced them and I much happier every time I look at my feet.

Finally snacks, the dreaded snack problem. Melanoma Man complains to me for the umpteenth time tonight that Butter does NOT like the after school snack Melanoma Man brings in the car each day.It is a different snack each day. I explain to Melanoma Man for the billionth time that it is NOT about the snack. It's about autonomy, the choosing, the  independence, being included. I offer my usual suggestion: "Why don't you have the boys pack their own snacks in the morning before they leave for school?" I am met with stone cold silence, the putting on of reading glasses and raising of book, as if to say "You are not here Laundry Thief. I cannot see you and I cannot hear you. The End." It's a simple solution and it will work, unless your goal is to compete with your 10 year old for your wife's attention. I'm not sure what the goal is, so I filled a basket with snacks, put it by the front door and asked the boys to pick one in the morning and put it in the car. Ta Da!

These small, tiny, minute and irrelevant things made my week