Independent play doesn’t happen at our house. Ever.
Connor doesn’t know how to play by himself and stay entertained, no matter how many toys we buy or how many times we teach him how to play with different things. After 30 seconds with a toy, he will come and find one of us and ask, beg, plead, bargain for us to play with him.
If we’re busy and we tell him we can’t play right then, he will follow us around asking questions.
“What does ‘sometimes’ mean?”
“Does the sun move really, really fast?”
“What does ‘liquid’ mean?”
So anyway, the only way for us to get anything done is to let him watch TV. I don’t like this solution because the very smart people of the universe say that too much TV will make you a mutant zombie. But, you know, dinner’s gotta get made, and undies need to get washed, so there you go.
So, every time there is a birthday or holiday, I try to get Connor toys that require attention…not just rolling a car around or something. Because I’m trying to avoid the whole TV zombie thing. But still, he does not spend more than a minute at a time with any particular toy.
When he had his last birthday, I got him this Lego build-a-hero thingy. He has never really liked Lego’s. I think, to him, it’s this big pile of colorful shapes that have no rhyme or reason because he can’t visualize the picture in his mind of an assembled item. I’m pretty sure he gets that from me because I feel the same way about those stupid Lego’s. I could stack and build ’til the cows come home, and I would just have some big, colorful, misshapen blob of plastic bricks.
But this thing I got him, it had purpose!! It had direction!!
He wasn’t interested.
So, it has sat on a shelf in the dining room for the last 2 months. Not because I’m too lazy to put it away, which I probably am, but because I want it to be seen every day, in the hope that he will be inspired to build himself a HERO!
Because I believe, dammit. We’re keeping hope alive up in this beyotch!
This weekend I was paying homage at the holy mecca (Target), and I got a text from hubs, with a bonus picture attached!
See the dingo in the background? It's like a bonus "Where's Waldo" picture, for your enjoyment.
Notice in the background that the TV is OFF…BONUS!! He’s got the instructions out in front of him, and has that look of fierce concentration on his face. I texted back and asked him how he got him to do it. He sent back the message “He asked! He can’t wait to show you, he’s so proud!”
So I started crying, right there in the meat section (by the way, did you know that Target has really, REALLY good meat? No? Their meat is better than what I used to get at the regular supermarket. The top sirloin is like budda, I swear on Kim Kardashian’s big ass!).
Since I’m impulsive, I headed straight to the toy aisle, and I picked up another Lego build-a-hero thingy, this time a black, cyborg-looking one. I’ve added it to the prize box. Knowing my kid, the next time his good behavior earns him a trip to the prize box, he will open it, see the Lego guy, and say “Oh man, I already did one of those. I want something cooler.”
When I got home later, he was so excited to show me his new creation. Later that evening, he even took it apart and put all the pieces back in the container, without being asked. Weird. That’s never happened before.
Next thing you know, I’ll get to pee all by myself, without interruption.
A girl can dream, can’t she??
