Time well spent. Building lego together with Ivana produced surprising memories
As I look back on our life together, I now realize how valuable TIME really is. Yes, family and friends time is wonderful. But we spend more time with our spouse than anyone else. When I look back on the time Ivana and I spent together, I realize that even if we were in the same room, we were not always really together.
We could sit in the lazy boy love seat recliner, and hardly acknowledge each other. Often our faces would be glued to our tablets. Mindless games. Scrolling my phone or laptop computer. Television on in the background. On one hand, very peaceful times. We were content to just be.
But there are no memories to look back on.
The memories I most cherish are the memories we made by doing stuff together. When we had put the technology down and were engaged in some activity. Skip-Bo or other card games. Ivana was a beast at Scrabble. The model trains we built.
And thanks to Covid, building Lego. Together.
Once in a while Ivana would buy me a set and enjoy watching me build it. Ivana had never built Lego herself.
Then Covid hit.
I was bored and restless one morning and must have been driving Ivana crazy. In a clearly exasperated voice I was told to “Go build something with your Lego!!”
“Okay, what?” All of my models were built.
We brainstormed some ideas before Ivana hit on the best plan.
“Build the dome. See if you can make the roof open!”
A great idea, and when you throw in a challenge as well…I was in! I started to take apart my models to get the pieces I would need.
A couple of hours later, I was busy figuring out the size and scale of my model, based on the available bricks. It was Ivana’s turn to be bored and restless. She watched me for a while. Then I heard something I had never heard before.
“What can I build?”
Music to my ears! “Honey, if you want to build we will need to buy a set to work on together.”
“Then order one.” She was serious. So we had a look at Lego’s website and chose one of the modular buildings. Bookstore and house. It was the small, fun details that caught Ivana’s attention. The Lego minifigure sitting by the grandfather clock is reading “Moby Brick.”
A few days later the set arrived. My dome aspirations were immediately gone. I had bit off more than I could chew anyway, I simply didn’t have enough bricks to make it happen at the scale I had started.
We cleared the kitchen table, and opened the set. I opened all the bags numbered 1 or 2 and divided them between a couple tupperware containers. Larger parts for me, and the smaller ones for her, justified with a very dubious “small hands, small parts.”
The magic began.
It didn’t take Ivana long before she was as fast as I, laying out pieces of the floor and sidewalk. Occasionally I had to dig a piece out of the wrong spot, or fix the orientation of a piece, or explain how the pieces fit together. I had never built a modular set before, and was as impressed as Ivana at the detail involved.
We built all of the first 3 stages that afternoon. No television. No radio. No staring at our tablets. No scrolling phones.
It was just Ivana and I,happy and relaxed, simply being together. Later that night Ivana mentioned that it reminded her of a road trip. Just us, enjoying our company, spending quality time. She had more fun than expected building Lego with me.
I was thrilled too. What a great day! A silver lining to the entire Covid situation, for many of us. More quality time with family. Doing things together you would never have done in the “normal” times.
We ate breakfast the next day. I didn’t want to be pushy, so I did not mention building. I didn’t have to. On her way into the shower Ivana suggested that I get the bags for stages 4 and 5.
“And I don’t need all the tiny parts in my tupperware. You did that because they are harder to find. Dirty dog!”
“Yes”, I laughed, “You have me there!” I was busted.
In just a few days the library was complete. Ivana constantly amazed at the detail. She had spent the better part of an hour making a curved staircase. I marvelled at how the designers came up with the bookshelves, and at the multitude of uses the Lego designers had found for different pieces from different Lego themes.
While building the foundation of the blue townhouse, Ivana remarked that we were going to finish building the set too quickly.
We ordered the modular diner set that afternoon. She was hooked.
Building together became a favorite pass time. More in the winter than summer, for obvious weather-related reasons. We ordered many sets from the Lego ‘Ideas’ theme, where fans design models.
One of those was the tree house. A favorite of ours.
When we were building the interior of one of the rooms, Ivana found a mini-figure size brush. I have very thin hair up top.
Ivana howled when she saw it and said “oh look, there’s a Lego brush for your head!!” And started to brush my head with it.
Howling laughter the entire time. Then she found the tiny Lego scissors. More howling laughter.
“They sent you a barber kit!”
I’ll never forget that afternoon.
I am forever grateful that we spent all those hours together. Really being together. I love that we both enjoyed some of the same hobbies. Some of our favorite memories come from those quiet afternoons.
Time Best Spent.
