Spotlight of the Month: JD

The Lego Meister!

Since my primary motivation for blogging is to have a family journal, I decided to spotlight a member of my family (extended included - watch out!) each month. Don't worry, I won't use names if you don't want me to. Anyway, I thought I'd start with my oldest, my little "Sugar Baby." That would be JD:

I can't believe it, but JD is nearly 7 1/2!. I can distinctly recall those
first few months after JD joined our family of two. I had no idea
what I was doing! JD has been my (our) experiment ever since!

Anyone that knows JD is keenly aware of the fact that this kid loves Legos! He is so creative! Sometimes this kid amazes Joel and me with his imaginative use of objects around him. I'd like to think that I helped foster his imagination, but I think he was just born that way. Actually, I will take credit for a little bit of it - I played Legos with him for hours on end! We lived in Arizona when he was introduced to the infinite world of Legos. Since there weren't any kids around his age, I became his only playmate. We built all sorts of things together, but his favorite item to engineer was and continues to be ships.

He used to build the most ingenious little ships! I wish I could have kept every single one, but we would have depleted our Lego supply years ago! He would get so frustrated in the early years. In fact, I used to get so frustrated listening to him cry every time his ship would fall apart. He hadn't mastered the art of making stable connections. Once he would finish crying over his destroyed ship, I would show him how to rebuild the base to make it more stable. Through the last 5 or so years, he had gone from single brick "ships" to elaborate masterpieces!

In fact, he won a Lego contest in the summer of 2007. He, with friend Annie, won the most "Sophisticated" award: It was a ship (of course) with a removable ship and working elevator! His taste has moved into the realm of Star Wars Shipbuilding.

The first ship we purchased for JD's startup collection was Anakin's "something, something" (that's mom-talk) ship - it's yellow, that's all I know...oh, and I dust it a lot. He blew me away when he put the whole thing together without any help. He has since built quite a collection for himself. When I asked him how many ships he has right now on his "big white shelf," he said, "There are too many to count Mom!" That should tell you something!

Joel and JD bond through Legos: They have built a couple of JD's huge ships together. In fact, Joel started a collection of his own. For his birthday he bought the Millenium Falcon. For Christmas he bought himself the Death Star. I don't get it!

Anyway, Joel and I fully support and are very proud of JD's desire to create and collect. Legos get a nod from this family!