Revenge of the Lego Blocks

   Nothing says love like giving your 25 year old Lego blocks to your own children to play with. Correction. Nothing says love like spending hours scrubbing your husband's 25 year old Lego blocks by hand so that he can give them to your children to play with.

I had to fight tooth and nail to hang on to anything of mine from childhood. If I didn't hide it, my mother would throw it away, give it away, or yard sale it. Almost nothing from my childhood survived her. My husband, however, appears to have managed to save every scrap of anything he ever played with, wore, and potentially even looked at in his entire life. I'm not really sure how he managed that since it's an utterly foreign concept to me, but whatever.

Anyway, recently, Hunny and the oldest boy made a trip to visit and returned with the long fabled Lego's of his youth. Unfortunately, they'd been in storage for a number of years, and prior to storing, had been in the home of my father-in-law who, although now reformed, used to smoke like a freight train. A little scrubbing was necessary before I could hand them off to my children. It took me literally 4 hours to scrub all of these Lego blocks. Once I did, my children were in hog heaven. You would have thought I had opened a chest full of gold doubloons and placed them in the center of the living room floor for their enjoyment. Better yet, it was Legos. Oddly, once Daddy's Lego blocks were available, their own blocks lost all appeal. I have no explanation for this, although Hunny would argue that his old school Legos are simply so imbued with awesomeness that they eclipse even their modern counterparts. Whatever the reason, I have only one question. Is there a decorating style that's noted for it's liberal use of tiny building blocks throughout the floor space? Because I'm not allowed to put them away, and I'm starting to think I should just decorate the rest of the living room to go with the current theme.

I've tried to contain them to this beach towel and met with limited success.  At least 6 times a day, I have to go through and play Lego round up.  I know there's no such thing as too many Legos, but I'm starting to wonder every time I step on one....

The Printer Goat Rope

On Monday, Hunny had the big kickoff meeting for his Cub Scout pack. That day, they had gone into the area public schools and spoken to the kids about the opportunities available to them if they joined scouting. He wanted to have a “Welcome Packet” available to give to each parent that came to the sign up meeting. Of course, in true man fashion, he hadn't actually finished writing, let alone printing said welcome packet until the day of the big sign up. So, in between his wanderings in the great wide world and his trips home, he mentions that he wants to print his glorious masterpiece on my printer. I'm fine with this. I have recently purchased ink; I have plenty of paper. Sure, have at it, husband.

And so begins the goat rope that is my husband's decision to print out 30 copies of his 12-page, front and back, full color, glorious, glossy, fantastic welcome packet. On my 6 year old printer. Less than 4 hours before he needs said copies. This is just poor planning and poor decision making in action. Let me preface this by saying, I love my printer. I use it all the time. I make at least 16 copies a day on it, and I print on it all the time. But, I print for personal use. Hunny is very obviously used to having an office quality printer at his disposal. He was horrified at the speed, or should I say lack of speed displayed by my poor little printer as it struggled to meet his demands. Meanwhile, I'm wondering if he thinks our living room is a Kinko's or something. I mean really? What was he smoking when he decided this was a good idea? More importantly, why didn't he share? But, I digress.

About ¼ of the way through this whole process, he has to leave to go to a class for his brand new dead pancreas. “Can you,” he asks, “finish this up for me?” Um... Can I finish your ill advised print project? “Sure,” I answer. Of course, halfway through, he's depleted all of my ink and most of my stockpile of paper. I actually have to load up all 3 of our kids, drive to the closest Wal-Mart, drop $50 on ink, and race home, realizing the whole time that these welcome packets are never going to be done on time, ever.

The Scout Meeting started at 6:30 that evening. At 6:45pm I phoned Hunny and said, “This is taking forever. Are you sure that you need all of these? I don't know if they're going to get done on time. Couldn't I just bring what I have?” He assured me that it was imperative that he have all of the packets. So, I dutifully continued to print. Meanwhile, our slightly OCD eldest child is pacing frantically back and forth like Dustin Hoffman's character in Rainman when he's late for Judge Wapner, going, “We're never going to make it on time. I'm going to miss the meeting. I'm going to be late. Can’t we just go? I really want to go.” Finally, at 7:15pm, all the copies are completed. I grab them and dash out the door, feeling every bit the conquering hero, confident that I will rush into the meeting and save the day with my glorious welcome packets. I pulled into the church parking lot at 7:30pm. The only people there were my husband and the other Cub Scout volunteers. There was one parent there who hadn't already left, and she was a friend of mine. I dutifully handed her one of the packets. Thanks, Hunny.

So what does Hunny have to say for himself? “I never paid attention when things were printing. I didn't realize it was that slow.” Which I think translates roughly to, “I have no concept of reality and as long as it doesn't inconvenience me,  the tribulations of your daily life are of no consequence to me as I get to escape the mad house almost every single day. What's for dinner?” Because, he always wants to know what's for dinner. Needless to say, on Tuesday, I have a brand new fast printer in the house. He can magic print jobs from it with his wazardly ways. Which is my way of saying that it's wireless, so he can do his very important job of holding down the couch across the room while simultaneously causing the printer to vomit forth anything that he a)beams to it with his iPhone, b)sends from his laptop, or c) emails to it from some other locale where he is also subduing some innocent piece of furniture that might at any second decide to defy the laws of gravity. He expects me to be pleased with him, but this just means I have to learn to use a new thing. I hate learning to use the new thing. Sigh.

Trying New Things

   Some of you may be familiar with my blogs on the What to Expect website.  I'm trying something new and branching out a bit with an independent blog over here on blogger.  I don't know how well this will work or how well I'll like it, but I think that it will be good for me to have a space all my own to report on all of the craziness of our lives.  I probably won't be posting as frequently on this site, but I promise to still try and update you with my kids' antics and try to put a smile on your face as much as I can!  Thanks for finding me over here, and I'll be back with more tales of my insanity soon!