My First Lego-Related Accident

Legos are such a mixed blessing. On the one hand, they are wonderful little building blocks that encourage imaginative creation. On the other hand, they are a blight on unsuspecting feet everywhere.

Actually, what I had a little while ago wasn't, technically, a Lego related accident. We haven't quite graduated up to Legos just yet. For ages--probably since Gabe was about a year old--we've had a few sets of the really big Lego-style blocks for Gabe to play with. Duplos, maybe? Who knows. There are so many knock-offs and I'm far too lazy to go upstairs and try to find a logo somewhere. But these blocks were pretty giant and, for most purposes, not terribly practical for building things other than what Gabe euphemistically calls "castles"--big, unwieldy constructions that resemble later 20th century American architecture for it's bland blockiness and general disinteresting qualities. These inevitably end up crashing under their own weight, which is just fine for Gabe. He only builds things so he can destroy them, anyway.

But, last night, we started sifting through the various nooks and crannies in our house to find our Christmas decorations, and we stumbled upon a container of Mega Blocks--another knock-off that falls somewhere between a Lego and a Duplo in size. I'm guessing they were a gift from someone last Christmas and, since Gabe was full-on putting everything into his mouth still at that time, we decided to shelve them for awhile. Then, of course, we forgot about them. But, last night, we found the container and pulled them out for Gabe to play with.

He's been having a grand old time with them since. These blocks, being only slightly more well-designed than the Duplos, still only offer limited creative possibilities. In addition to the more traditional "castle," we are also now able to create an "airplane" and a "rocket" (the former a big block with stubby little wings jetting out to the side and the latter a tower that comes to a sort of point). Not surprisingly, Gabe is still more interested in destroying these things than actually building. "Daddy. Rocket," he'll demand. So I build something of a distinctly un-spaceworthy nature, then he knocks it over and breaks it apart. "Daddy. Airplane." And the process repeats.

This was the second picture I took of the offending little buggers. The first one was just the blocks. Seeing me take a picture, though, Gabe said, "Me picture," so I had to take one with him in it, too.

After doing that a few times first thing this morning, we paused for breakfast. Being an idiot, I didn't bother to clean up the blocks. Instead, I brought his highchair with his oatmeal into the living room and set the chair right over the blocks. The saying goes, "out of sight, out of mind," but to my brain's way of thinking, it's always been more "out of the way, out of mind," so I rather forgot they were there.

Breakfast finished and I cleaned Gabe up, took him out of his chair, then picked up the chair to take it back into the kitchen. At that point, the blocks truly were out of sight because the highchair was completely blocking them from my vision (nevermind the fact that I actually noticed them AS I WAS WALKING OVER TO TAKE GABE OUT OF THE CHAIR, that was a full twenty seconds earlier, so obviously I would have forgotten that bit of information already).

I picked up the chair and took a step towards the kitchen--not a ginger, I-don't-know-what-might-be-on-the-floor-so-I-better-be-careful kind of step, either, it was a rest-my-full-weight-on-my-traveling-foot-like-I-don't-have-a-care-in-the-world kind of step--right into the middle of a minefield of Mega Blocks. The pain receptors in my right foot registered at least four pointy corners at the same time. Instinctively, I pulled the foot back up in pain, which made me lose my balance and my footing. I stumbled forward, and surely would have ended up in a tangled, broken mess on the floor with the highchair, except one of the living room chairs caught the base of the high chair and stopped my forward movement after just a few inches. It didn't, however, stop my momentum. I ended up jamming the tray into my abdomen, knocking the wind from me a little, and my left foot, trying to catch up with my body to regain my balance, smashed into the front base of the highchair, peeling off nearly a quarter of the toenail on my big toe (though, strangely, not producing any blood--it was more like it split the top layer of nail or something, but I can't remove it because then it WILL bleed and it will probably hurt considerably more than it does right now). "Mmmm!" I groaned, partly because I'm still trying really hard not to yell or curse in front of the kids, but mostly because I didn't have enough air in my lungs to form a proper curse, and I hobbled the chair out of the room so I could examine the damage.

"Do it again!" Gabe chimed from where he was standing in the middle of the room. And I probably will, but it will have to wait, at least until I can figure out a way to trim this nail down enough to get a sock back on without tearing it all to hell.