Señor Destructo

We usually have two Lego tables set up during the winter months.  One in front of the kitchen door (we never use that door in the winter) and one in the living room in front of the southern-facing bay window.  Squeeze always gets obsessed with Legos over the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays, putting together all the sets that have slowly disintegrated over the year.

Jamie was too little for much destruction last year.  He was always interested, but he couldn't reach much.  I even have a picture of his fat, little baby toes gripping a Hubbard squash in an attempt to get just a leeeetle bit higher.

This year is different.  Oy.  Though the tables have been set up for the last two months, he hasn't shown much interest in total and complete destruction until recently.  Sure, he tinkered with the Legos within reach, and tore a few things apart, but most of it was easily put together.  Those sweet days gone by.

This has most definitely not been the case this past week.  He has morphed into a rabid Tasmanian devil, leaving a path of destruction and scattered Lego pieces in his wake.  Ripped apart, thrown asunder, probably even stomped on, who knows.

This morning the older boys were in the bathroom with the door closed, to keep in heat and steam with Diego in the tub, listening to a Magic Treehouse audiobook.  All three have been sick with some kind of bronchial virus; Jamie is pretty much over it, but Diego and Truen are still in the thrust of sore throats and the accompanying coughing fits.

Jamie was mercifully entertaining himself at the play table, or so I thought, while I had a bit of down-time over a slow breakfast after 6 days of being a sick-slave.  Oh dear.  I should have seen it coming.

Truen came out the the bathroom at some point to check in with me on something.  By this point I was in the living room writing an email to my in-laws.  He surveyed the wreck of the Lego table (which I hadn't noticed yet) and said, "Look at this!  Who made this mess?  Who made this mess?!" while Jamie rolled around on the floor under a blanket.

I finally tore myself away and replied with the obvious, "Uhm, welllll . . . it must have been Jamie".  Who else??

Truen went back into the bathroom to tell Diego the news.  When he had left, Jamie popped up from under the blanket like a little jack-in-the-box and affirmed jubilantly, "I did it, yeth!"

So the little sucker is proud of it too.

I see a near-end of the Lego table in sight.  Slowly, slowly all the destroyed pieces are being stored away in boxes for next winter's Lego-making blitz.  The stuff that the boys are able to put together might be stored on a high place, played with for a length of time, then put back UP.

That little rascal.