And then there was that time that I overcooked the Legos...

I was busy getting ready for C's big Lego birthday extravaganza last week. C had requested another birthday party at home and even though last year I swore I would never do it again, I found myself preparing to host another birthday party for C's friends in my house. The theme for this year's party should be no surprise to you if you've ever met C (or have done any reading of my past blog entries)...he wanted a Lego party.

I had ordered 6 pounds (that's right, 6 pounds) of Legos on ebay & had been sorting through them in order to divide the pieces somewhat equitably among all of our party guests. We were going to use the Lego bricks in a couple of different games & I thought they'd also make mighty fine parting gifts for all the kids. As I sorted through them though, I realized that what I had was 6 pounds (that's right, 6 pounds) of specialty Lego pieces. In other words, there were really no basic Lego bricks to be found in the entire bunch. It turns out that most of my Lego purchase were parts from Star Wars or Power Miner Lego kits. This came as exciting news to C who was thrilled to see so many cool parts in one place, but it presented a bit of a problem for what I had planned.

As I mulled over what my next step would be, I realized that if I could get my hands on some regular Lego bricks, I could add them to what I already had & we could really go to town. I also recalled that a friend of mine offered up the Lego bricks that she used to have in her first grade classroom (she was and still is a teacher).

My friend was kind enough to tell me I could take whatever bricks I needed, so I spent the better part of an hour sorting through the big bin of Legos she offered and I took what I thought would work. After getting a decent-sized pile (about 1/6 of what she had) I decided they could use a good cleaning. Since these bricks had been in a first grade classroom for years, they had some of the typical grime commonly seen on well loved toys.

I filled up the sink with some soapy warm water & starting scrubbing the bricks...by hand...one at a time. It was a bit tedious, but I figured the bricks were free, so a little work on my part wasn't the end of the world. Mr. Crackers (probably rightly so) thought I had gone completely insane. " Why are you washing those bricks?" he asked me. When I explained about the grime & potential germs he shot me a look (you know the look...the one that says, how did I come to be married to this nut job?"), but wisely kept quiet & quickly left the room.

As he passed passed through he kitchen a few minutes later, he suggested that I just dump the Legos into the dishwasher. While this seemed like a good idea to me, I couldn't figure out a way to do that without losing all the the bricks to the bottom & ruining one of our only new kitchen appliances, so I continued washing them one...at...a...time in the sink.

On a second pass through the kitchen, Mr. Crackers said, "Why don't you just put them in some hot water on the stove? You know, kind of disinfect them like we did the kids' bottles when they were babies (that one time...)."

This, to me, sounded like a brilliant idea, so I filled up my big stock pot with water & dumped my pile of Legos right in. I stood next to the oven & occasionally stirred the pot to make sure everything was OK.

And it was OK for about 4 minutes or so, until I started noticing that the Legos began to look a little funny. I scooped a couple out of the pot & saw (to my horror) that I they had begun to melt.

I frantically ran the pot to sink & dumped out all the water & Legos to see what I could salvage. Mr. Crackers came into the kitchen to offer his assistance and after much searching, we discovered that there was nothing to salvage. I had managed to melt an entire pot of Legos....

Want to see my handiwork?





Yep, they are curved and dimpled...

Nary a straight line or 90 degree angle left in sight after I got done poaching them.

To make me feel a bit better, Mr. Crackers tried to build something with the partially melted Legos only to discover that the only thing worse than no Lego bricks are melted Lego bricks. You see, once they melt,even a little bit, they absolutely won't fit together anymore (Duh!).

Since it seemed really mean to give the kids a bunch of warped Legos, and since I didn't have the heart or will to search through the bin of Legos my kind friend offered me again, I ended up ordering a brand new bin of plain Lego bricks from Amazon.com. Thankfully they arrived in plenty of time for me to add them to the bags.

Since they were new, I figured it was safe to serve them to the kids raw.