Building

So this morning I was muttering in my mind how I hate giving my kids legos for birthdays/Christmas. They always request legos; they love legos; they love the sets where they can follow the instructions, build something and lose all the pieces the next day. I think I'm not alone in this... :)

My oldest just had a birthday, and he got 8 lego packs with different super heroes and vehicles for them. He was so excited to get them and began building right away. My son just younger had a birthday less than 2 months earlier and got 16 Star Wars minifigures with a few ships. Today, as I was cleaning them up off the floor again I was so discouraged the sets were all mixed together, with several previous sets, pieces missing, and what they worked so hard on, just destroyed. In my mind, it makes no sense-why do they like to get these things when they don't get to 'enjoy' them, they just get torn apart. Yet, when they get home from school, they will take those lego pieces and begin building all over again.

It just made me think about life and the way we 'build' things. Any mother knows what it is like to clean the house, and have it a complete mess an hour later and think, 'WHY did I JUST clean?!' We're building our home, we're building our family, but sometimes it feels like it just keeps getting broken down. Or at a different level, we work so hard teaching our children, trying to instill values and help them become great people, and yet, when they make a bad choice, we feel like everything we have done is a waste. They are not getting it. We failed. They failed. Ruined. Or, we are just going through our everyday lives ourselves. We are reading scriptures, we are praying, we are cooking, cleaning, family vacations, playing games, and going through life. And then... your husband loses a job, someone gets really sick, you fall into a pit of depression-destruction-and after the dust settles, you pick up all the pieces and feel like you need to start building all over, AGAIN.

We hear that 'again' and often put a negative turn on it. Ugh. Again. But our little children, that are working so hard to build something, following the instructions, doing everything right, when their little brother comes along, tearing apart piece by piece til they are left with a pile of pieces, they say, 'YEAH! I get to build it AGAIN!" It is not anything negative in their eyes. Building is the fun part. If they finish it, it's done, boring. They'll often tear it apart themselves just to build the exact same thing again. Think of puzzles. The fun is in the building.

Now, my oldest is 8, and I can start to see that 'human nature' of it being negative begin to come out. He will sometimes get frustrated when things get messed up, don't go according to plan, but his three year old brother just loves building and when his 2 year old sister messes something up it does not phase him in the least. Why do we become like that? Why can't we just enjoy the journey. Why does doing the same thing over and over again feel like a nuisance to us, when they find peace in it. 'I got this. I did it before, I can do it again. And this time, maybe even do it a little better, a little faster.'

Their building is never in vain. Even when things get destroyed, they had fun while doing it. AND they are learning. They are becoming better builders. They are able to understand instructions better the more they do. They become more creative learning what pieces can do what. I don't know, I feel like I've hit the rambling point on typing, but it was just something for me to think about. And just try harder to enjoy the building. Enjoy my day to day, sometimes monotonous things, or when things feel like they are thrown in a pit and ground into pieces, just start again without any whining or complaining. It's another opportunity for me to build and learn, yeah! ;)