The beauty about some of these items is they come with engines and Storm Troopers and various other cool props. So once he builds it, breaks it, and loses half the pieces, he can still use his own imagination to build all kinds of spaceships and other contraptions, and he has built some pretty cool stuff on his own.
Lev will sit quietly for hours assembling these things and anytime you can get a kid to sit for hours, as a parent you have to get excited. And any time you can get Lev to be quiet for hours, as his parent you have to get ecstatic.
The problem is that these things are expensive and depending on the number of pieces can run in excess of $100. I get it; they have many customized pieces and someone has to design it and create the instructions, and of course, in a free market they are welcome to charge whatever they want. But it is a lot of money to spend for 3 hours of quiet, only to have it broken and mixed in with all the other Lego pieces in the fourth hour.
Now Lev has his heart firmly entrenched on acquiring the Star Wars Republic Gunship. It has almost 700 pieces and, according to Lev, costs about $100 (I haven't checked, but that sounds about right). He is painfully frightened that we would not spend $100 on his birthday present and that he will NEVER have the Republic Gunship. (Cue the whiny tears.)
So we told him he can buy it himself and he can earn the money. And we will give him many opportunities to earn the money.
Now two things we can comfortably say about Lev is that when he sets his mind to something he can achieve it, and he can be a very diligent worker. The trouble is getting him to set his mind to something and getting him to work.
But the gauntlet has been laid down!
Today we got about six inches of snow and I told Lev I will pay him $2 per hour to shovel the driveway. Now our driveway is over 400 feet long which gave him plenty of opportunity to make a dent in his defense budget. He set out at 8:00 am, but sadly, the snow was a little heavy for him and he got discouraged quickly with little progress. By 9:00 am he was back in the house, wanting breakfast and his $2.
By 10:00 am, I went out to finish the job. We have historically had it plowed for $40 a visit, but our driveway is starting to crumble and I would just as soon extend its life by keeping the plow from tearing it up. I'm not that excited to pay for a 400 foot driveway replacement.
By 10:05, Lev had returned with shovel in hand, followed by Daniel and Molloy (I believe all were shooed outside by their mother who took the opportunity to...well, I guess it doesn't matter but the fact that it was kidless must have been nice).
There we were, like Snow Rangers, working our way down the driveway; Lev
holding on to the dream of his Republic Gunship, Molloy holding on to a small handheld garden rake that she thought was helpful, and Daniel holding his shovel in one hand and his pee-pee
in the other doing a bathroom dance that Fred Astaire could not have better choreographed with a hat and cane.
It seems that both kids have been learning about Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War lately and the work conversation was heavily laden with talk of slavery (were they sending me a message they were unhappy with their wages?) "Why is slavery bad?" "Why did slaves come from other countries?", and the dreaded, "Can we get slaves?")
At about the 350 foot mark, Lev was heard to exclaim to Daniel, "Hey, if we work slower we can make more money!" I don't know if I was happy that he had finally figured that out, or dejected that it took him so long to figure it out. Anyway, he didn't really slow his pace but worked right through to the end.
With my help, we finished the driveway in an hour and half, and that combined with Lev's initial hour earned him $5 (Daniel earned $4 and Molloy, well, she's still out their raking the snowbanks).
Details to follow on his progress toward the Republic Gunship.
