The Unbearable Heaviness of Legos

Bud loves Legos. He loves putting them together; he loves playing with them. And then he loves taking some of them apart and doing it all over again.

Except when they come apart when he doesn't want them to. Which they do regularly.

And then he's sad. And upset. And frustrated. Because he can currently only put them together sequentially from the beginning, not in trouble-shooting mode.

Then I'm sad. And upset. And frustrated. Because he brings me these half-broken, fragile Lego models with pieces missing and I don't know what to do. Literally. See, I'm not very good with spatial reasoning, never did well at those tests where you see a diagram and have to predict the shape, can't read a map at a glance, never turn the right way, can't fit that extra bit into the dishwasher, luggage, or fridge. I can stare at those Lego models and not be able to follow the diagrammatic instructions nor even replicate one side based on its symmetrical counterpart.

And he looks at me so disappointedly, realizing I'm not the amazing, fix-it-all Mommy he thought, because I get just as frustrated and am just as helpless. And just as disappointed that there are increasingly things that I can't fix for him. Maybe if he weren't there, weren't waiting expectedly, I might be able to figure out the construction in time, with practice. But not under pressure, not with an impatient and increasingly disappointed audience. Not with all the emotion hanging in the balance.

So we both just end up in tears.