Building Blocks

I was quite disappointed to discover that Fawwaz missed his Asr prayer because of playing with GameBoy. That gaming machine is supposed to divert his attention from post-circumcision pain. Now it has gone extra mile to make him forgetful of basic muslim obligation. It should be banned temporarily.

The ban now is imposed on everyone. After all school holidays is soon coming to the end. Fawwaz and Sumayyah turned to book reading. But Yaseer, who is still struggling with identifying alphabets, easily got bored with texts ands started disturbing others.

I was looking for an alternative to this. It should not be screen intensive play object anymore. It must be something to be physically manipulated so that these kids, Fawwaz, Sumayyah, Yaseer and even Khalid could acquire new skill from playing with it.

I recalled my past. I used to play a lot with Lego when I was a kid. It was fun and creative. I think Lego-kind of thing is the answer. At the same time, the blocks must be big, at least of a thumb size piece so that Khalid could not swallow.

I went to Giant to look for some cost effective packs. The cheapest one was RM20. But they are just square boxes. Plain and dull. Another one priced at RM40 offered various block sizes and came with action figure, tyres and house kits. This looks interesting so I picked it up.

Fawwaz, Sumayyah and Yaseer, knowing that this is the only option they got after GameBoy is banned, play with the blocks eagerly. Within a short time, they came out with Transformers robot. They are creative indeed.

At the age of 1, Khalid still could not appreciate these Transformers robot. I taught him a different skill. Collect blocks, put into the bag and next empty the bag. Repeat. He looked happy with this job.