Do you want to build a condor?
/The MM, who is two and a bit, has recently gotten into Blocks.
We tend to build sensible, functional structures - houses, towers, and the occasional boat - because they ground the MM in reality, prevent Fanciful Architectural Notions, and provide a good foundation should she wish to go into structural engineering.
No! That’s not why. It’s because I’m shit at blocks.
The MM’s Dad whips up things like “a simple beehive” and “a cheeky three story bungalow” and “the Hagia Sophia” while I build a small, somewhat square structure and declare it a “Bee House” and feel at once proud and deeply inadequate.
(Apparently my ‘Bee House’ is not a beehive because a beehive is on a raised pedestal and has a balanced foundation and multiple windows and engineered flashings and get out of here MM’s Dad, I am trying my best.)
No shade on the MM’s dad, though. This is a general failing of mine, and translates to anything spatial or structural. We are currently building a house (actual, not blocks) and every so often the MM’s dad will blithely say “ah yes, 1200 by three should be fine” and I will say HOW BIG IS THAT. HOW BIG IS THIS ROOM I AM IN. HOW ABOUT THE DOG IS HE 1200 OR IS HE THREE and I am now “not allowed to ask the architect about the Bigness of Things.”
this is my crowning achievement, “hoshi oinku’s post-apocalyptic chariot.” it is mad max inspired but you have to imagine the flames.
also the baby tiger is there because the mm felt he needed his own chariot but it was almost dinner time.
hoshi was cool with it
Anyway! On to the condors. The MM and I were mucking about before daycare and decided to do some Block Business. We absolutely did not have time for blocks, but she wasn’t that keen on going to daycare and I wasn’t that keen on going to work, so blocks it was.
“What shall we build?” I asked. “A house? A tower?”
For some reason these practical structures did not inspire enthusiasm. So I ventured “…something else?”
The MM paused, thoughtfully, and said:
“Mama, can you build a condor?”
well, PROBABLY NOT.
Before you start questioning the veracity of this tale, I promise it’s true. Your child may not be a weird condor fiend, but mine is. And I guess that’s on you.
I did second-guess it, initially; it’s very easy to misunderstand a two-year-old, and it’s not like we had been indulging in a lot of condor chat.
However, on balance it seemed likely because:
The MM knows what condors are, and likes them.
The MM is quite deliberate, and surprisingly precise. If she wanted a chicken, she would’ve said chicken.
Condor is a very specific word. There aren’t many words like it, apart from Condo, Condom, and Gondor. These are, thankfully, not words she knows. (Condo is too American, Condom is not age-appropriate, and I do not have enough blocks to build Gondor.)
these lads did though.
So - unless the MM had somehow become aware of Condor, the German airline - the bird was what she craved.
this is a phenomenal looking plane but i don’t have enough pink blocks.
(There’s also a Condor mountain range and a Mexican drug lord called El Cóndor but I don’t think she meant either of those.)
Anyway, I embarked on building a condor, and may I just say -
YOU MAY BE ASKING YOURSELF WHY I POSTED THE SAME PICTURE TWICE, BUT THE SECOND ONE IS ACTUALLY THE CONDOR I BUILT OUT OF BLOCKS. I KNOW. IT’S VERY GOOD
The MM was UNEXPECTEDLY DELIGHTED with the condor and promptly insisted on a Condor Family, which to be honest I was not expecting and could’ve done without.
She built the small ones, and I built the big ones.
she asked me why they have holes in the middle and I said “to put your finger through”, as if it was a perfectly normal answer.
then we put our fingers through the condor parents for quite some time.
so much of my parents’ bullshit makes sense now
It’s been several days and Condor Family is still in the lounge. Yesterday the MM woke up and dashed out of her room, saw the condors, stopped short, and roared with prideful possessiveness, “MY CONDORS!”
I meant to end this post here - and I do hear your sigh of relief that I haven’t - but about a week ago, the MM SMASHED the condors in a fit of rage (about going to the rudely condorless daycare, if I remember rightly). Then demanded they be rebuilt, with the addition of a Golden Condor.
Many people would say that the correct parenting move would have been to sternly say, “No! You broke your condors! No more condors for you, destructive child! If you continue along these lines, you will be relegated to seagulls only, and you will never find peace within yourself, for you destroy everything you love!”
which is clearly what i did.
Good Golden Condor eh.
I wouldn’t normally have made him, but the MM wasn’t that keen on going to daycare, and I wasn’t that keen on going to work.
“so is that going in as sick leave?”