Imagine

Both my husband and I love that my daughter loves Lego. We're kind of 'old school' Lego folks; when we were kids, there were no fancy kits and few fancy pieces. Back then you dumped a bunch of Lego bricks on the floor and just used your imagination.

There's a wall in the Lego store called the Pick-a-Brick wall. That's where you can fill a cup with random bits and pieces of Lego. This is where I steer her in the Lego store instead of toward the kits. My daughter had a fun time choosing (and truth be told I had a fun time helping her choose) and even more fun at home making up uses for some of the more unconventional pieces.

She's always enjoyed building things -- with blocks, Lego, Lincoln Logs -- and my husband and I often wonder if she'll be an engineer. If you were to ask her what she wants to be when she grows up, she'd say "a firefighter" one day and "a veterinarian" the next. (Last year, there was only one answer: "a mermaid.")

Not that we're in any hurry for her to grow up, it's still fun to image what she may do when she's an adult. I'm sure her interests and aspirations will change over the months and years, but I hope she keeps and nurtures her imagination for a long, long time.