This anecdotal post is inspired by my daughter’s current obsession with block building. It is an activity which frequently keeps her entertained for extensive periods of time, often drawing me in to the fun.
I have thoroughly enjoyed myself and learned a lot from playing with my daughter in this game that brings such delight to us both. Here I have captured one of our recent block building endeavors together.
Surveying my civil engineer’s bright, spacious office littered with plastic building materials, I can’t help but think to myself that I am in my element with people of her intellectual level. I have thoroughly enjoyed working with her these past few weeks as she has explored her abilities in building design and construction.
Although her building style and design preferences are far different from mine, we somehow always manage to create a beautiful structure together that we are both proud of.
I am ever the perfectionist, using stabilizing foundations, positioning my building blocks just so and coordinating the colors of opposite walls.
By contrast, my civil engineer is full of imaginative abandon, often layering unthinkable color patterns in precariously teetering structures. These structures usually boast unique shapes which are ever changing due to the constant need to rebuild portions that have collapsed.
Something that always amazes me is her perseverance and patience, two character traits well-suited to her current career choice. Despite numerous tower topples and countless restaurant restorations, she remains calm, cool and collected for at least the first twenty times she rebuilds each establishment.
As I watch her now, she is determined to do the seemingly impossible: Build a freestanding, extremely thin ceiling-scraper.
Despite my relentless recommendation that she utilize one of our larger construction blocks as a sturdy foundation, she continues to insist that the tower must only consist of smaller blocks.
Knowing my civil engineer is smart but sometimes overly ambitious, I watch with doubtful eyes as she places a block on top of the skinny tower which is currently reaching a height equal with her own.
To my astonishment, she lets go of the tower and steps back with a giggle of excitement when it remains standing.
“Wooooow,” I ooze with admiration in my voice. “That is a REALLY tall tower! You did so good building it, and it’s staying up!”
My civil engineer hops in place several times with excitement, her enthusiasm for her job well-done infectiously bringing a smile to my face. Working with her certainly fills my days with joy.
As she picks up another block to attempt to break her own record for tallest tower of the day, I know my civil engineer’s overconfidence is about to come crashing down along with her awe-inspiring tower.
As plastic pieces of construction thud to the floor, my civil engineer’s happy expression quickly evaporates into a scowl and I know her tolerance for uncooperative blocks is fading fast.
“You don’t want it to fall!” She emphatically states in her typical third-person manner.
My civil engineer always knows what she wants and she’s excellent at communicating it. Sometimes she will even peacefully accept explanations as to why she cannot have what she wants – a quality highly valued and extremely rare among people in her stage of life.
However, today I know that she is not feeling 100% due to some developing oral discomfort. Hence, her ability to regulate her responses to co-workers and building materials is partially impaired.
Trying once again to convince her to build a strong foundation to prevent the recurrent collapsing of her tower, I try placing a section of her severed tower on top of a large building block to demonstrate its effectiveness.
“No!” She insists with a grumpy dip of her brows. “No foundation.” Sure of her unethical decision to erect a building with unreliable stability, she removes the large foundation block from beneath her tipsy tower and begins to once again stack narrow blocks on top of each other.
Realizing my civil engineer is determined to try the same method of construction until the blocks decide to submit to her wishes, I sit back and give her space to work.
Her procedures may appear ridiculously impractical to some. But I am accustomed to her unconventional building philosophies and I have witnessed her succeed in building some wonderful creations.
Allowing my mind to wonder back to our earlier days of construction work together – which was about a week ago – I reminisce about the beautifully exotic and unexpected appearance of the church nursery-restaurant combo we had built together.
It started out as my project, but my civil engineer quickly interviened to put her own twist on the building she claimed would be a church nursery. Somewhere along the way, she decided it would also make a good restaurant.
It had a better foundation than the tower she is currently building, for sure (mainly because I built the foundation), although the upper heights of the walls repeatedly crumbled as a result of the same problem she is now experiencing – her desire to create extremely thin vertical structures.
But the amazing thing is, the very aspect of our building that made it shaky was also the thing that revolutionized restaurants in our block building world.
The fact that the decorative towers rising from the balconies of our restaurant needed constant repair and renovation meant that our dining lego-men customers were constantly being provided a new view and atmosphere – even several times throughout their meal!
As my civil engineer had worked tirelessly to reconstruct each portion that tumbled, I thought to myself how beautiful it looked with her infusion of vibrant, eratic color and artistic abstract design. Despite my own propensity to align each block completely straight and maintain clean color lines, I valued the excitement she brought to my otherwise boring – albeit practical – building.
Coming back to the present, I notice my civil engineer has abandoned her smaller blocks to begin stacking some longer blocks together. Informing me that it is a “samich”, she hands it to me for what is apparently our lunch break.
I take an imaginary bite out of my duplo sandwich and sing her praises as the best sandwich chef in town.
Feeling as if I have been wearing a permenant smile throughout our entire construction project, I am truly inspired by what a free-spirited civil engineer she is.
I know that as we work longer together, she and I will continue to learn from each other. Eventually, she will pick up on the skill I have been trying to impart to her of how to build a strong foundation. And I will always be learning from her how to make buildings, work, and life more fun.
If you enjoyed this post, read my post on the 24/7 career of motherhood.
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