If Your Children Play with Legos...

I think we can officially name this school vacation the "Summer of Legos" at our home. The girls start off each day by dumping the Lego bin onto the floor and building the day away. A parent couldn't be happier about that, right? Right. But the challenge lies in the fact that they leave and come back to them throughout the day (the reason I don't make them clean up right away). This means way too many opportunities to step on them (ouch!), or kick them under the bookshelf, or send them sliding into the next room. We have been finding those minuscule pieces everywhere, and it is a major project getting them all cleaned up at the end of the day.


Enter "A", who recalled his little-boy Lego storage—a "parachute" bag, he called it. He described it in detail, and it sounded like the perfect solution. I got to work, with my adviser close at hand for some grommet work.


The idea is simple—a circle of nylon (though any fabric would do), grommets around the edge, and a cord. It lies completely flat, so the girls can work from the pile of pieces in the center, eliminating the likelihood of having them scattered about the house. When it's clean-up time, they simply pull the strings and they're done!

The girls are thrilled to have their new bag, "A" is happy to have re-created this bit of his childhood, and the soles of my feet are thanking me.