Aaron the Builder

When Aaron was about 15 months old, he was getting bored with the toys he had, so I went to Target in seach of something to buy that day (usually I will order toys online when I can, but I wanted something he could play with immediately). I found a set of 70 Duplos and even though it said they were for 18 months and older, I didn't think he'd choke on them, so I decided to try them out on him.

They were a big hit. It didn't take him long to figure out how they connect. At first he couldn't always get them lined up, but he knew which way was right-side up and we would help him line them up and attach them to the square blue 8x8 base that came with the set.

Within a moth or two, he would use up all the Duplos in his "buildings". Since the set of 70 had cost over $20, I decided to look on eBay. I'd had some success in getting him gently used clothing at great prices, and since Duplos hold up well, I thought it would be a good way to get a lot of Duplos at a good price.

And I was right. I found an auction by a woman who was getting rid of her son's Duplos from 1979. There were 175+ pieces, including a red barn, animals, cars, a tow truck, lots of little people, doors and windows, and a few other special pieces from a school-themed, town-themed and farm-themed sets. (You can see the red barn in the pictures above. Aaron builds on the roof of it.) With shipping, the total was just under $33. Some of the pieces aren't in perfect shape - the barn is missing one of it's handles, but most of the pieces which are just 2x4 and 2x2 bricks are almost indistinguishable from the newer ones. And the lot included a lot of special pieces that you can't buy new today.

He spends a good part of his day playing with his Duplos. Maybe we have an engineer in the making. When my sister found out he likes Duplos, she gave me a container full from her twins who have moved on to Legos, so we have plenty of building materials now.