Building Blocks: Not Child’s Play

by Holly Homer on December 16th, 2010 | 3 Comments »

During childhood, I had a set of wooden blocks.

Not the light and painted kind, but the heavy-store-bought-is-for-sissies kind of blocks.

Family legend goes that I was given these for my first birthday. My dad made them and put them in a wooden wagon that he also made. Each block can be carefully fitted into the wagon. The secret to this clean-up puzzle could be unlocked once you had put away the blocks a thousand times.

Or that is how it seemed.

There is NO excuse for the way the blocks look in the picture above because I promise I hit that goal before I entered Kindergarten.

Block building was a regular event in our house. It occurred post-church-lunch-nap.

Block building was NOT for kids.

It was a serious building enterprise whose mission was to use every block in a creative and strategic way that allowed the last block placed to touch the ceiling.

If the wooden block architect was successful, he was able to celebrate by slipping a pivotal piece out of his creation which caused the entire structure to tumble to the floor in one long crash.

The original Jenga.

Super-sized.

I remember the terror of the falling building. Blocks rapidly dropped from the sky accompanied by wooden thunder. As the block tower neared completion each week, the kids would run from the room in expectation of the impending destruction. We would huddle together just around the corner using the wall as a block bomb shield.

It was magnificent.

My dad made a set of wooden blocks for my boys and then another set for my brother's kids. The kids were thrilled, but the adults were even more excited because they know that building blocks is not child's play...

Holly Homer is a mommy blogger. She writes June Cleaver Nirvana.

She is a stay-at-home mom of three block-buildin' boys. In her spare time *cough*, she watches a little TV and ends up making late night purchases like WOW Containers, Pajama Jeans, and even the Booty Pop!