I'm booooooored!

That's what Oli's just informed me. 

Not at all reasonable of course, because of the following:

• His friend, Spencer, has only just left after a sleepover.
• He has 40 000 toys to keep him busy.
• He has about 10 drawing books, heaps of paper, pens, paints and canvases.
• The TV's on.
• He's got my iPad.
• He has a whole room full of Lego.

and

• He has a Nerf gun in his hand that his dad was kind enough to modify for him this morning.

Yes yes, you say, but why aren't you doing something with him?

I know that me complaining about Oliver's boredom may lead you to believe that I'm a terrible mother that never does anything with my child, instead plying him with toys and friends to keep him busy. Well, that's true (in part), but I do like to think that I balance that with quality time. Sometimes.

The truth is, at the moment I'm supposed to be marking a bunch of uni assignments (can't you tell by the way I'm bent over the books?). Which is why I had organised the sleepover. So that I wouldn't get the 'can we play a board game/hide and seek/Nerf wars' requests all day.

But of course now Spencer is gone, and Oli's got to entertain himself. Hence the 'I'm bored' statement.
I'd be interested to know whether this is a new phenomenon, or if it's as timeless as the act of having children.

Certainly, I remember boredom as a young 'un, but hey, I didn't have iPads or the internet (god I'm old!).

In their defence, my boys were always pretty good at entertaining themselves, and didn't seem o hate their own company as some kids do. But they have their moments.

What's your take on the 'I'm bored' scenario?

This could get a little out of hand

As I've mentioned before, Oliver LOVES Lego.
Actually, 'loves' is probably not a strong enough word. He is completely obsessed with it.

He's always been the kind of kid to latch on to something he likes and throw himself headlong into it: as a 3 year old he was all about the Spiderman, and when he was 5 he loved Indiana Jones. He had to have the clothes, the DVDs, the books, the stickers, the bed sheets (more so with Spiderman), and he would take great pleasure in dressing up as his favourite character. We actually own 5 different Spider man outfits, plus the branded clothes (don't worry dear readers, much of it was handed down to us!)

So now it's Lego. He's liked playing with Lego for a while now. We have always encouraged it because it's a pretty durable toy (my parents still have my Lego from 25+ years ago), you can use bits from 30 years ago with bits from today, and I think it encourages imagination and problem solving.

Oliver and Sam used to play with Lego a bit, though Sam would always make the 'really cool ships' (like this one that we still have displayed in Sam's room)
and Oliver would always be trying to take bits off them. Needless to say there was some conflict.

Since Sam died though, Oliver has gotten into it even more. He plays for hours and hours some days, pulling bits of other bits, changing the little people's arms and hair and faces, building fantastic stuff.

The other day he was building a 'house'. I used to do that when I was a kid (mainly because you could only get house bricks, windows and doors), but I wasn't very clever at it, building stand-alone walls that would fall down when you pushed them.
When I saw Oliver making the house, I thought of that, and told him that he needed to join the walls together. When I went to show him, he'd already done it, interlocking the wall bricks together, just like a bricklayer would. Needless to say I was very impressed, and started having visions of my son's wonderful career as an engineer. :)

But the thing that really worries me is that Anthony's now getting in on the act. The last couple of times we have been to Trash and Treasure, he has bought a bunch of Lego (including a couple of retro space sets). I don't really mind, as it's much cheaper to buy it there, but he's talking about buying lots more. I think he may be falling under the Lego spell. I know of adults that are hooked on Lego (one woman on EB posted recently about buying a 'Death Star' for her husband's 40th), who build the models and display them in their lounge rooms with special lights. I'm not sure I'm ready for that!!

Nah, I'm not that worried. It's nice that they're doing something together other than playing video games, and it's nice to see Oliver happy and playing. Anthony's even been doing some sorting and tidying:
(although there have been a couple of 'don't touch that one Oliver' moments). I must admit, even I'm getting in on the act a bit. I've bought a couple of little bits off Ebay.

But then Anthony started talking about painting our house 'Lego colours'. Hmmmmmm.....