Hoarding For Kids

In my weekly dispatches from Baby Center, that intrepid outfit that is with me every step of the way to encourage me on my journey of parenting—or rub it in that I’m not doing as well as I should be, I’ve never quite figured out their exact m.o.—I recently noticed a transition. The subject line of these emails now no longer refers to “my preschooler” but “my big kid.”

Big kid. Thanks a lot, Baby Center, way to rub it in.

Anyway. This particular installment was all about collecting. And it was something I could immediately relate to. I’m a collector. Of everything. This is well-documented. So this is totally a bonding experience for me. I love it. More than I should, probably. The desire to amass large amounts of something, anything, put them on display, show them off to others. This is right up my alley.

We have superheroes and Matchbox cars, Star Wars figures and Legos. That’s the big one. That’s the “major collection” that Baby Center was referring to. They’re so prevalent, in fact, that “Lego” is one of the first, most intelligible words that Little Brother can say. True story.

But it’s bad. We’re running out of room because of Legos. We’re going to have get a new house with an entire wing devoted to these tiny bricks. Maybe the Doozer could just build us a new house out of Legos. I’m pretty sure that we have enough.

Of course, he’s totally sucked me in to this activity. I’m way into it. I’ve reverted to the kid version of me who used to do Legos. The sense of accomplishment that I get from helping to assemble a toy that has been designed for the intellect and motor skills of 7- to 12-year-olds. Pathetic. Truly pathetic.

Sometimes these collections merge. And interact. The Doozer is genre-agnostic, apparently. We’ve seen a variety of action figure mash-ups. Scooby-Doo characters versus superheroes. Ghouls and ghosts invading the Star Wars universe. One day there was even a skateboarding George Washington minifigure visiting a Lego house. (The Doozer’s totally going to grow up and write for The Simpsons, isn’t he? That’ll still be on the air then, right?)

Is it wrong that I want to perpetuate this? Jamie Oliver recently posted a photo on Facebook of his own Darth Vader action figure case, saying he was bequeathing his collection of action figures, now that he’s 38. (I took this to mean that I still can hold on to mine for a few more years.)

Post by Jamie Oliver.

Then Simon Pegg revealed to Marc Maron on WTF that he’s a 43-year-old man who has a proper Boba Fett helmet. It all made me feel a bit more normal, even if the wife disagrees on this matter.

But does she have a point? Do I actually have the personality of a 5-year-old?

Don’t answer that.

But again, seriously, space is an issue. Now with two kids, pretty much every room is a playroom in our house. This is not right. We need a new place. With a dedicated space where we can lock them in. Kidding, kidding. We wouldn’t do that. All the time. We’d let them out.

On occasion.