Ed Space
It is every parent's worst nightmare.
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You know how sometimes you go to the doctor or the hospital and they ask you to describe the pain on a scale of one to 10?
Well this is 11 on the scale.
The pain comes quick and sharp, coursing up through your leg, making you feel sick to your stomach and bringing you to your knees.
Yes, it's that moment when you step on a piece of your child's Lego.
It may only be temporary and leave no scar other than a mental one, but it still bloody hurts.
Did you know there is actually a scientific reason which it hurts so much?
According to an article on redtri.com stepping on Lego hurts so much because there are up to 200,000 sensory receptors on the bottom of each foot and all scream in pain.
According to the article it actually hurts less if you tread on multiple bricks because the pain spreads. Makes sense.
For those of us parents who have children who love Lego, it is unfortunately a hazard of the job. It comes with the territory.
Finding random bits of Lego at various random locations in the house is common place.
Making the choice between either picking them up or those bits of Lego somehow mysteriously getting sucked up in the vaccum is a weekly mental struggle.
For our youngest daughter, now 10, Lego has been a passion her whole life. Her Lego would rank 1-10 in the list of her favourite toys.
The show Lego Masters is her favourite show and by default Hamish Blake is her favourite television personality bar none.
She has watched every episode of every season too many times to count.
Every Christmas or birthday we ask what she would like. "Lego," is the reply.
On our lounge room floor we currently have giant Lego spiders waging a war against little Lego warriors and a lady serving ice cream at a little Lego ice cream store.
I'm not sure if the ice cream is the cause of the war, I don't really know what to make of it.
So, like many across our region, we will gather our excited youngest (and the reluctant older one who will only come for the potential of an Insta post) and head to the Illawarra's biggest and best Annual Brick Show.
If you have never been, get along to the Illawarra Sports Stadium in Berkeley across the weekend between 9am-4pm each day.
You might even see me. I'll be the one with the limp.
- Julian O'Brien is the editor of the Illawarra Mercury
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