Lego Dragons Aren't for Girls?

I love Legos. I played with them for hours when I was young. I was never good at building anything besides square houses but my imagination always filled in the gaps remarkably well. It always drove my mother crazy when the vacuum, or her foot, would find them lying around. We lost many a Lego warrior to the dark forest called Christmas tree. When I was in Jr. High I was given a really neat Lego set with dragons. (My family knew that if it was dragon related I liked it.) The little dragons are cool. I had a lot of fun with them.

A couple of weeks ago in my art class one of the little boys, he is seven I think, brought some Legos with him. He sat next to me and was explaining all about the set his Legos came from. I admitted that the only Legos that were mine was the dragon set. His eyes grew wide and he drilled me which set they came from and what they looked like. Apparently they are no longer made. I promised him I would get them from my parents’ house and show him when I could.

I was really excited to go to art last week. I had the two dragons with me (one is green with black wings and the other is black with transparent red wings.) When he came to class I pulled them out triumphantly.

“Oh, those aren’t the blah blah blah dragons.”

I was crushed. He went on to talk about how the dragon he was expecting me to bring was larger and could fit lots of Lego men on its back. He wandered off to start painting. Meanwhile my art teacher, who is a little older than I am, was holding the dragons.

“These are so cool. Look at this.”

He laughed and handed them back to me. We decided kids don’t appreciate cool things.

As I was cleaning up for the day the little boy came over and asked to see the dragons again. I showed him, less enthusiastically and he asked if he could have one. I lied.

“No, my nieces like to play with them.” (Both nieces are under four. They shouldn’t really be playing with them. Duplos are better.)

“Your nieces like to play with them? But they’re girls.”

I was grumpy after that. Obviously I didn’t count as a girl. *sigh*

I'm glad that my art teacher thought they were cool and when my nieces are a little older I will make sure they learn the enjoyment of Legos, especially the dragons.