Sorting of the Legos

Just a few minutes ago, I finished what has become a quarterly ritual at our house: The Sorting of the Legos. It's very important to do this once an a while, because, over time as the kids play with their blocks, they get shuffled from room to room, moved upstairs and then downstairs and are hastily pit away when it's tome to go to bed, all the little parts -- which they need constantly -- get shuffled to the bottom of the general Lego box, where they have to be searched out. More often than not, it's Mom or Dad doing the sorting, because the kids sort like this:

[shuffle shuffle] I CAN'T FIND ANYTHING!

So we sort the little stuff into compartment boxes, making it easier for the kids to fond the parts they're looking for. We also have a smaller hellbox filled with people parts, accessories, and wheels and wheel-associated accoutrements.

Then there's the Dead Box. That's where the broken Legos, the orphaned hands and arms, and the amputee Lego men and women end up. Occasionally, I'll perform surgery on the broken Lego men, putting them back together with parts from the Dead Box. I do my best to make sure the arms and hands match, first because the kids insist and second because I'm pretty anal about it myself. The Dead Box is also where parts - mostly men - go into time out when the kids getto fighting.

It pays to have a system, I suppose. And it feels good to have the quarterly sorting done. I'm off to a nap.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPod Touch, like a pretentious pseudosnob.