Saturday 3 March 2012

Mini figure madness

So, what did you do today? Day at the office and drinks after work? Or school-run and a bit of bargain hunting? I don't do too many 'mum' posts - but I thought I'd share a glimpse into how sometimes life as a parent finds you spending your morning in an alternative fashion - in this case on a friends carpet, trying to identify the contents of lego mini-figure sachets without opening them. Sample conversation was something like this:

"Feel this bit. Does this feel like a banana to you?"

"Could be. Although it could be goggles. Is there a helmet?"

"There's a long bit in here - I think it's a spear. Or a fishing rod"

"Bollocks. Another bloody Hula girl! That's five!"


Yes, this is how many we had. An entire shop counter display carton - £120 worth of the little buggers. If you've not played with lego in the last 30 years you might not know that the humble lego man has undergone a style makeover and no longer has the kind of hair formerly sported by Alf from Home and Away. They now come in super cool outfits, with no career or cheery racial stereotype unrepresented!


Both my boys are lego crazy and absolutely adore collecting these figures. Each series has 16 different characters but as they come sealed packets, without the benefit of x-ray vision, you don't know what you're getting. The boys swap between themselves, but as the figures are £2 each it's hard to complete the collection once you've got most of the series - we have an army of Egyptian Mummies and my friend's little boy's got enough Beefeaters to form an entire Royal Guard.  My mate Michelle, mum of said little boy, had spent so long feeling the packets in our local toyshop that the proprietor  - presumably feeling uncomfortable with the mad-woman fondling the merchandise - kindly said that she could take the entire box home with her, and then return it the following day with the payment for any she wanted.

            
I need the genie - contact me with your swapsie requests ;-)
           
So obviously, being a sane and rational mother, I only laughed uproariously at her for a moment before joining her in her living room for our training in blind lego identification. Luckily, we'd already established that each figure comes with one unique identifiable piece - whether the hula girl's maracas or the rapper's boom-box - and all it takes is a gallon of coffee, an hour and a half and a packet of post-it notes. Oh, and it would probably help to have a working knowledge of braille. But we were successful! And now I have a whole stash of identified mini-figures to give as rewards for good behaviour, in the goody-bags for the upcoming lego themed birthday party and for decorating the birthday cake. I'm thinking a giant lego brick, displayed on one of those green knobbly base-boards.

If you don't have kids this might seem a ridiculous way to spend your morning, but I feel it takes second place to many times we'd run out of emmantal, favourite cheese of the mini dictator of the day, and I defused the immanent melt-down by hand-carving holes in a slice of cheddar. Obviously I couldn't make it taste like an evil cross between soap and walnuts, but he never seemed to mind, it was all about the aesthetics. And is it only my child who will only deign to eat a banana - the convenient self-packaged, ready to eat fruit - if it's sliced on a plate to be eaten with a fork?

There's a lego man head underneath - he's in a gorilla suit!

Mind you, I'd be lying if I said the morning's escapades were all for the benefit of the offspring. I love the figures too, and would have a collection larger than the boys' if I thought I'd be allowed to keep it (I currently have the Statue of Liberty and the Cave Girl, and am refusing to give them up). Michelle is just as bad, Mr FHCS has them on his desk at work, and I defy anyone who played with lego as a kid - or just likes kitschy cute fashion - not to see the appeal. Of course, mine would be displayed on a shelf like Boy1's, not scattered under-foot or mixed and matched to create mutants a la Toy Story and thoughtfully left in the shower for Mummy to tread on - the hallmark of a Boy2 game.

click pic to enlarge

Series 7 is out this month - I want the hippy, geek and merman; how about you?

What ridiculous thing have you found yourself doing for your kids?

Lakota x


 PS. My giveaway ends March 7th - I think I'll throw a mini-figure in too!


PPS. If you like my blog, I'd love it if you could nominate any of the more amusing posts for the Brit Mums BIB awards - I think the eBay posts have the edge at the moment!

40 comments:

  1. I will be there in a year or two I'm guessing!

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  2. These guys are cute! I like the genie. I had no idea lego had come so far:)

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  3. And what's wrong with Alf's hair Lakota???

    We don't watch H & A and never really have, but for some reason my husband and I think it's very funny to use Alf euphemism's like: "stone the bloddy crows!" But only in each others company you'll be relieved to know - we're not that embarrassing!

    p.s. my lego days are over.

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    1. Is it still on? I've not watched it since I was about 13 - it is a true and honest representation of Australia though, right? You can tell if someone is 'a hoon' by the fact they have no sleeves on their check shirt?

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  4. Oh man my son LOVES Legos! He's 16 and all he askes for are Magic the Gathering cards and Legos!

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  5. OMG! I love that Genie!! hahaha
    I may have to go to the lego section when I am at Walmart on the weekend. *heh*

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  6. The things you do for your kids although I have to own up to having had a whole collection of lego star wars figures on my desk when I had a job!
    Am now lusting after the little lego piper in a kilt!!

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  7. ;-)) My days are over with the lego figures but i to have gone into the toy shop and felt the packets trying to find a different one or a perticular one Dylan had asked for. He still buys some bits but not much its more xbox games now sadly. Have a great weekend, dee x

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  8. WOW! I had no idea lego were so fab now! I would love the hippy... do they make a Princess Leia lego???

    Sarah xxx

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  9. My boys are now sadly past the Lego stage - otherwise I am sure I'd be doing the same!

    I need a lego hippy - let me know if you get 2 :)

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  10. As a parent of an autistic 4 year old girl, lego doesn't really work for us, she doesn't understand it...but I can totally identify with the on-the-carpet-for the-kids- thing!!! Your 'coffee morning' sounds at once familiar and hilarious to me.xx.

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  11. Ha, been there, done that. The mini figures use to have a code thingie on the packet that you could scan with a posh phone and it would tell you what figure was inside. Sadly the Lego people cottoned on to this sneakiness and stopped it. At least I thik they did. Will grill the Big Man when he comes in. He'll know.

    Madison xxx

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    1. Yeah I heard that - there are some serious lego geekery blogs out there - sadly I've never had a posh phone and have always had to be old school about it!

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  12. They look so cool! As a kid my brothers and I each collected something so my poor mum had to shell out for each of our collections. Mine were troll dolls and my brothers were TMNT and Snoopy. xx

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  13. Wow, lego sure has moved on since I was a child. I love the genie :)

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  14. God I miss Lego! Don't miss treading on it at 6am though, but how much fun was it to help my kids build stuff, wathc my work be 'alltered' and then leave it in one piece for months taking up half the table?
    I have travelled to distant towns to search for X-Men figures back in the day. I have bought Pokemon cards instead buying myself chocolate before now!
    I love the Viking. Do they do an artist?
    xxxx

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  15. I love the mini figures too - and I laughed out loud at your description of fondling the packs to try and work out what is in each pack. I'm off to the award page now to put in my vote :-)

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  16. Lego has definitely changed since I was a kid! I love that Hippy! x

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  17. Great post, made me smile!
    My littlest loves Lego but I hadn't heard about these figures, I'll have to have a look!
    Re the banana, my girls have to have it opened from the bottom to get rid of the yucky black bit but I was the child who would only have a banana sliced if it was sliced onto a plate and eaten with a fork! Hope you get the figures you want!

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  18. These are super cute and now I want too! I can totally relate to this in so many ways! I first started collecting certain happy meal collections, I still have a few rare ones. The blind boxes are crazy addicting. Kid Robot has some of my favorites! I have a pretty fab toy collection myself but have mellowed in the last few years, a gal could go crazy ya know :)

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  19. I can't think of any crazy things I've done for BB yet, but I'm sure the days are coming!
    Lego has moved on so much from what I remember playing with. It's a bit of a shame that so many of the sets are more about merchandising and I think it takes away some of the emphasis on the child using their own imagination. That said, these are quite an interesting idea (and a nice little earner for Lego), and they're a good excuse for adults to have lego. I like the hippy x

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  20. Will keep an eye out, but will find it hard to part with the genie if I find him!

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  21. OMG, you've done a Lego post too! Yeh the genie is good but I'm liking the Viking. I've got a Viking helmet somewhere, must dig it out.....

    Ridiculous things you do for kids? Blimey, too many to mention and many connected to toilet incidences. Dear me.......

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  22. Ha! I have done this and I don't even have any children :D Our minifig collection started out with ones we built ourselves in the Lego shop that look like me and my partner, then we saw the new series and were feeling all the packets to get our preferred ones. I struck lucky and got the little artist! He will sit in my craft room, once I have sorted it out :)

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  23. Hahahahahaha, as the mum of two little boys, this post made me giggle into my cereal! I am totally guilty of lego man fondling in the supermarket :) Laura

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  24. Well thank goodness we escaped mini figures, it was bad enough with buckets full of the other stuff (not to mention Playmobil) in the seventies and eighties. Mind you the grandtwins are now four years old so............

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  25. I'm old enough to be a grandmother (although I'm not!), but your post make me want to run out and buy myself some Lego figures!

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  26. Fab post, it’s funny some of our friends collect these it sure does show there not just for kids after all! Did they do a Harry Potter set? A while back they managed to somehow stumble upon a really rare one and later sold it on eBay for £200! Madness right xxx

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  27. ha! loved this post! i didn't have lego when i was small but my friends had bags and bags of it and i was pretty jealous....

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  28. Anyone who says we mums have it easy should read this post. Can't wait to see the cake!

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  29. Brilliant!!!! I'd love to be the person who comes into the shop and sees the packet fondling! So funny! I've spent my time doing equally bizarre (to the passerby) activities! Like cutting up old packaging into about a thousand tiny mosaic squares... I'll look out for any kids with them and try to con them out of their genie ;-)

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  30. If I were more lego-minded I'd be casting a few admiring glances as the Little Red Riding Hood lego-girl :-)

    Jem xXx

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  31. You're such a great mum, lakota! I wish i had kids! I just cant help but to laugh on your friend michelle fondling the packets to feel what's in it!! things we do for our offsprings and out of LOVE! Lego Themed Birthday Party sounds like fun! God , please give me a son so I can have fun with lego packets' fondling sessions hahahaha

    x susan

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  32. I have a Lego mad 7 year old and we have the darned stuff scattered all over the house. I'm about to turn a naff orange pine nick nack shelf into a minifigure display shelf. And I also recently held a Lego themed party and downloaded the Lego font to make a banner and did some Lego games. The easiest bit was to print off some Lego heads and slip onto straws. The boys loved them! I blogged a photo of them here http://nellie-dean.blogspot.com/2012/01/365-photo-challenge-day-3-lego-head.html

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  33. They are brilliant!I particularly love the gorilla suit. We still have all of our kids lego, as I can say with pride, my darlin' little savant boy, at the age of eight, was lego champion of Lismore. (against 15 yr olds) He could have gone on to the nationals...he could have been a contender, but they stopped the bloody comp! It was more than a hobby, it was a lifestyle in our house.
    You've got to respect their marketing people. They keep on churning out brilliant, covetable produce.
    Thanks for your kind wishes...ofourse I overdid it yesterday, sitting at the computer no less, so am now reclining like the Queeen Of Sheba. (is there a lego person for that?)

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  34. I never even knew these existed, they look great. My girls are currently into Moshi monsters and we have similar problems with collecting them. Before that we have puppies, kittens, ponies and even jungle animals in your pocket.

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  35. Oh my goodness. I cant believe you were allowed to make off with the box. I love surprise packages and I dont. good thing you have such refined techniques. What a good mom.

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  36. Well, I'm not really thinking of ridiculous things I've done for my kids (though there have been many). I'm more thinking of ALL the toys I buy THEM, but really they're for me. I'm glad I'm not the only mom who loves the toys too!

    The other day I was clutching my monchichi to my chest (just like the one I had as a girl) and proclaiming it "MINE! MINE! MINE!" when my three year old son said: "Yes, but it's good to share mommy." bhahaha

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