all of us together

on lego and minimalism

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Ahhh minimalism. The great social rebuttal to decades of overconsumption. I can’t get enough. Well, I still have a house full of stuff, but it’s an ever-simplified house. I’ve gotten rid of nearly 50% of what we own now, and am close to being done I think.

It is a great relief to my husband, the life-long natural minimalist. When we met he owned only a guitar, a backpack, and a large rubbermaid bin of earthly possessions. Enter me, joyfully making a life for us, pining to move out of an apartment and into a family home. And the arrival of our first child and my first real chance to own kid stuff! New toys, classic toys, toys from my childhood, toys from my mother’s childhood, passed down from attic to basement for decades. Not to mention all the other baby and kid paraphernalia that turned our home into a kid home, a family home. I basked in it.

And then I got over it.

Our house was impossible to tidy, impossible to clean, impossible to relax in. And Big Son just couldn’t settle down and play with one thing contentedly for a minute before moving on to the next. So I got on the minimalism train and we are all so much happier.

I’ll post a home tour soon to show you how far along we are on this journey and you can tell me how much further you think we should go! I am definitely not the extremist my husband is, and imagine I will always live in a fully furnished house, but I do finally believe less is best.

Anyway, enter minimalism and toys. Regardless of where you fall on the getting-rid-of-all-the-toys spectrum it seems like lego is the last to go. In super minimal homes with only one toy, that toy is often lego. Even my children-need-nothing-but-the-outdoors husband insisted we score a tub of lego when Big Son was still too little even to be allowed near those choking hazards.
 
 

 
Because the benefits of lego are vast in terms of creative possibility and brain development we often assume that more is more! It took nearly a year of Big Son playing lego everyday and crying to us everyday – often throwing full on tantrums – because he could not find some particular piece, that I finally had the epiphany that too much lego is too much. So I started to consider getting rid of some. And I started to sort through it all, and holy moly, then I knew for sure that too much lego is too much! Ultimately we got rid of about ¾ of it. (I know, it’s shocking. It feels wrong. Like some sort of lego heresy. We spent so much time accumulating lego, finding good deals, requesting it for gifts, basking in our love for it, and declaring it the greatest educational toy of our time). 



 
 
We have this large shallow bin from Ikea that we use for storing lego. We used this even when we had 4x more lego than we do now. If you keep lego loose in one bin (which for some kids is a better option than maintaining an organizational system), make it this bin! It’s nice and wide and shallow so you can see what you have without dumping the whole lot. I prefer it to those drawstring-type lego bags that turn into play mats. I never put the lid on it – I just slide it under the bed when not in use (where it fits perfectly). 

 
 
 
After our big lego purge I organized the remaining pieces by category inside the shallow lego bin and labelled. The categories I came up with (which are relevant to a young child – not necessarily an older lego aficionado) are: minifigs, vehicle supplies, classic bricks, flat pieces/bases, strange/miscellaneous, and tiny. 

 
 
 
And you know what happened? Big Son gleefully started playing lego and never cries about it anymore. He loves putting pieces back where they go (?!) and he can’t believe he can find whatever piece he wants easily, happily, and by himself! (A win for everyone.) It is a sudden joyful freedom for him. 

Another Awesome Lego Tip:
My favorite lego rule: all lego at all times must be in one of three places – in the storage bin, on the play rug, or on display in our “lego museum” (which is an empty shelf in Big Son’s room). Any lego that’s found outside of these areas (ie. on the floor where we walk) will go hang out on a high shelf in the garage for 48 hours. We followed through with this a couple times in the beginning (it was received with hysteria and massive sobs) and since then everyone’s been on board. I occasionally playfully pretend to be the hungry lego snatcher that’s trying to score some lego to stash in my garage cave, which leads to squeals and hands racing to get all loose lego pieces off the floor and onto the play mat. 

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