On Being a 3 Year Old... Again!

I often make jokes about how immature I am. I have developed a little concept that I call the apparent maturity factor. It is kind of like the wind chill factor in that it is a perceived, not actual figure. This is how I calculate it: I take the age that I am (41) and average it with the age that I act (15) and come up with an apparent maturity factor of 28. I still laugh at a good fart and chuckle when someone says something like "That's a nice piece of wood."(So maybe 28 is still to high.) But when I was playing Legos with my 15 month old daughter the other day, I realized my apparent maturity factor should actually be about three.

We were on the floor playing with her Legos, the big ones of course -- the little ones would be a choking hazard. I decided I wanted to make an airplane. Not just any airplane, but a Super Awesome Airplane that my daughter would love to play with. I started gathering up the required pieces and assembling my plane. Well wouldn't you know it, before I could finish the SAA (Super Awesome Airplane) my daughter started grabbing my pieces. MY pieces! There was a whole box full of blocks, yet she had to have mine.

I tried to distract her, pointing out the large box full of Legos. I attempted to hand her pieces out of it saying things like  "Use these honey," and "These are Daddy's pieces, and these are yours," but daughter was relentless. She had to have my pieces. I mean, there were literally 100 other pieces she could have used. All the same colors and sizes. There were even more interesting pieces than the ones I was using. We picked up a Go Diego Go block set at a lawn sale recently and there were animal pieces, parts to a vehicle, even a Lego rope ladder.

I even tried blocking her from my Legos with my body, using it as a shield. "That will keep her from my blocks," I thought. Nope! She climbed right over top of me to get at my pieces. And what did she do when she got them? <insert dramatic pause here> She chewed on them, or banged them against other blocks. Sometimes she just gave them a little toss. I think she did it just so I couldn't have them!

At this point I started stealing them back when she wasn't looking. "Aha! That will show her!!" But it didn't. She stole them back. It was almost like it was a game to her. She didn't seem to understand that I was making this Super Awesome Airplane for her! And in a crime even more hideous than the theft of my Legos from my scrap pile, she would try to take them directly off of my -- I mean her -- airplane. "How dare you?!?!"

So there I sat, using my legs as a little barrier, blocking off my Legos and my construction from my daughter's little thieving fingers. I fended her off with one arm and despite her cries of displeasure, I swiftly brought my creation to life! Propellor, wings, tail fins, even a little place for a Lego person to sit! It was marvelous! Boeing would have been proud! I handed it to my duaghter and said, "Here sweetie. Daddy made you an airplane!" She took it in her hands, held it reverently for about an eighth of a second. And destroyed it.

I tried to grab it and scold her for destroying my creation when it dawned on me: "What the hell am I doing?" I had become a three year old again. Instead of just having fun playing with my daughter, I was steadily getting more annoyed with her as we battled for the Legos. Where did this reaction come from? Is it just me? I have always considered myself a fairly reasonable, in-control kind of dad. I am certainly not the kind that would actually get angry at my daugther over Legos. Angry may sound a bit exaggerated, but I was certainly getting there. But then again, I'm sure that my daughter probably just thought we were playing get the Legos.

My only conclusion is that it has to be the Legos. Legos are not the fun, educational and imaginative toys I was led to believe. Legos must be pure unmitigated evil, placed upon the earth to spread discord and disharmony. Just like the game Monopoly.


All kidding aside, it boils down to two things. First is that you need to have realistic expectations for your children. Did I really think that she would swoosh the plane around the house making airplane sounds? She just started walking and has no idea what a plane is yet. Of course not. She is only 15 months old.


The second thing is recognizing how your feeling or reacting, analyzing it and and adjusting your behavior accordingly. I may have faltered a bit with this Lego session but next time we play, I will not react the same way. Aware of how ridiculous I was being, next time I will have a much more enjoyable experience! But I tell you now, so help me God, if she keeps turning off the TV while "we're" trying to watch The Backyardigans, I am going to put her in her highchair and.... okay, maybe I am not quite there yet.